


Gate - 4- The Queen

by sharkcar



Series: The Bad Sleep Well [14]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Stormtrooper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:33:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27756949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkcar/pseuds/sharkcar
Summary: An imagining of the lives of clones after the Clone Wars. Just some simple men, making their ways in the universe, in all their tragicomic glory.1- Air and Darkness- Cody is missing2- Hearts- Rex gets engaged3- Mother- Wolffe and Alis search for family
Relationships: Alexsandr Kallus/CT-7567 | Rex, Alexsandr Kallus/Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios, CC-2224 | Cody & Original Female Character(s), CC-2224 | Cody/Original Female Character(s), CC-3636 | Wolffe & Original Character(s), CT-7567 | Rex/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Bad Sleep Well [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1334464
Comments: 7
Kudos: 5





	1. Air and Darkness

Eriadu, seven years before the Clone Wars

It was her last day there, but she didn’t know it.  
  
Zerlina dipped the cup in her water jar and drew out a drink. She whispered a prayer of protection over it and sniffed the water before taking a sip. To make sure it was still ‘normal water’.  
  
‘Normal water’ was a term in the local language, which had before meant merely fresh water as opposed to salt. It had taken on the meaning of water that was untainted and safe to drink. It was increasingly becoming a misnomer, since ‘normal’ would imply that such a thing was plentiful and not an aberration.  
  
The hundred or so residents of the tiny village of Puddle Fish had been at their plots all morning, slashing and burning the dense vegetation. The air was thick with the damp smoke from burning wet plants.  
  
Fewer and fewer places were safe for traditional farming in their forest, so new plots had to be cleared as older sections of jungle withered and died. It had only been happening for half a century in those parts, so many people thought that it could still reverse, citing lean times in the past. Clinging to the term ‘normal’ for anything was hopeful that things would never change in the long run.  
  
One of the village boys, Vanni Werner’s-son, came over and dipped his cup in Zerlina’s jar and took a drink.  
  
“Hey, I just drew that out, that’s mine,” Zerlina complained. It was hard work pulling up buckets, even with a crank. As a male, Vanni automatically outranked her in what passed for society. Still, she felt it needed to be pointed out that it was unfair. For all the good it did.  
  
Zerlina’s mother, Clara, was in their yard a hundred meters away. She looked over, watching the exchange, but she never stopped working, planting orderly rows of root vegetables from her cooking scraps. The ends grew back if you planted them.  
  
The household was just the two of them, Clara and her daughter, since her husband died. The amount of land they could clear themselves was small and it was hard work. Much of their diet had to be supplemented with things they could trap or gather.  
  
Clara planned to get her daughter married to someone who could give her an easier life, maybe in another village where people wouldn’t look down on them. That boy, Vanni, was lazy. Clara didn’t approve.  
  
Zerlina resented the disapproving look. She hadn’t asked for the company. It wasn’t like she could ask him to leave. She resigned herself to his presence and lowered the bucket down into the well for more water to fill her jar. Vanni never offered to help.  
  
Zerlina had lived every day of her twelve years in that village. As one of the younger people, she was not among those who could remember a time before the pollution. But she’d heard stories. All around the village hearths at night, as people gathered. They told tales of how it used to be, of people and events long gone, but worthy of remembering. Older tales of times people couldn’t remember when precisely, but that were told about enough that everyone knew them. Other tales to explain why this or that. Or those that were just made up out of flights of fancy, like the stuff out of dreams, long ago or far away.  
  
Stories helped her imagine that things could be different than they were. She had tried questioning if things couldn’t be better for people if they could just agree to try, but no matter what, she was always given a lecture about how stupid it was to question divine will. People deserved what happened to them.  
  
She leaned her head over the edge and watched the bucket descend. Lina liked the color of the sky in the reflection on the water below. She straightened her back and stretched, getting ready to put the heavy jar back on her head for the walk back home. She was the only one standing and looking up, so she was the first to spot the newcomers.  
  
The beings walked through the wall of smoke in a line. They all had machines, they wore them, they carried them, they rode them, these inorganic objects were all over them like they were all part of one structure.  
  
The other villagers stood up curiously. It was rare, but they’d seen people like them before. People from more civilized places, so they said. Where they lived, such technology was common. Some of the villagers had attempted to acquire access to mechanical advantages. They thought it might help them better protect their land from the dangerous animals that roamed the jungle. Or from other villagers and tribes who tried to take over their land or water, or women. However, when they tried to buy tech, what passed for government around there didn’t allow them and told them it was for their own good. They had heard rumors of such things as automated humanoids, and space travel. But such things were less relevant to villagers around those parts than their own fairy tales of ‘what if’.  
  
Weapons, however, were always relevant to the people they were pointed at. The villagers screamed in terror at the sight of the blasters.  
  
Zerlina wondered if she should try to speak to them. Traders coming through had spoken it to them for thousands of years, so it was a second language to those who had an aptitude. She was one of the best Basic speakers in the village.  
  
Instead of letting her, Clara, ran over and threw her sweaty burkah over her daughter and put her arms around her protectively. Clara knew those kinds of weapons meant the men were in charge. But her daughter was all she had, she reacted as if on instinct and desperation, trying sympathetic magic to will her little girl invisible.  
  
A few people were shot in the backs to demonstrate what the weapons could do.  
  
The villagers gathered for safety in a clutch, hands raised. They’d never been through this before, but they had heard stories recently of raiders in the forest from time to time.  
  
Men like these wouldn’t want much of what they had, it wasn’t worth much to them. Raiders were always moving. They would be looking for greener pastures if they had options. If they cooperated quietly, the men would probably just rape and steal supplies and go away, leaving them with their lives. That was their only hope.  
  
The man who seemed to be Leader shot the village chief in the chest. The action spoke better than words. The people dropped to their knees in response, eyes wide, hands still up helplessly. Some cried. Some whispered prayers. Some pissed themselves. Zerlina’s mother was mournfully wailing for mercy, not necessarily directed at the men, or a divinity, but just as some outlet for her overwhelmed emotions.  
  
Zerlina stayed under the sheet of cloth with the two holes in it to see out of.  
  
Three men were assigned guard duty, standing over the prisoners, weapons pointed. They pulled a few men from the group and made them set to work digging holes and burying things in the ground. Nobody knew why or what the things were.  
  
–  
  
Jedi Master Plo Koon looked through the scopes, “They know we’re close behind them. They are going to make their stand here. About fifty guerillas, a hundred villagers. They don’t seem to have any barriers built. But they have the villagers surrounded.”  
  
Plo passed the scopes to his padawan Bultar Swan.  
  
She peered through, “Human shields, then. What’s the plan, Master?”  
  
A group of armed insurgents had been fighting the planet’s government for about a year trying to overthrow the Tarkin family. It was a domestic matter, but the Tarkins had asked the Galactic Senate for assistance. After Lord Tarkin had proved the many atrocities perpetrated by these rebels, the Senate had sent the Jedi.  
  
The guerrilla’s cohorts, who had been waiting for these men across the jungle, had already been arrested. Not content to just surrender, they had killed hostages unnecessarily. Seemingly just for spite. The Jedi were trying to prevent another disaster.  
  
Master Plo spoke over his wrist com, “Time to negotiate.”  
  
A hooded figure in a brown cloak emerged up the village path from the tree line. His hands folded in front of him, moving so softly that he seemed to float. He gestured, pointing with two fingers and the two perimeter guards who had barred his way simply lowered their weapons and let him pass.  
  
Zerlina craned her neck with the other villagers, but she could barely see through the stupid burkah.  
  
The armed guerrillas aimed blasters, the figure put up hands in a gesture of surrender. To the peasants, his hands looked impossibly clean and soft and light pink, like a child’s.  
  
The guerrilla leader stood, “Yes?”  
  
The cloaked figure lowered his hood, revealing instead a man. His shaggy red hair shined. The beard made him look wise, the eyes kind, “Hello, there.”  
  
Zerlina’s heart told her he was there to save them.  
  
The cloaked man used huge arm gestures while addressing them in Basic, “Oh great and powerful one, I’ve come from the next village. We would like to offer you safe quarter and our friendship. We are no friends of Tarkin’s. We ask that you spare us, we are on your side, I’ve come to bring you back with me. Let us leave this pitiful place behind. Our leaders want to give you water and food.”  
  
“And you are?” the warlord asked.  
  
“The village shaman. I have foreseen your fortune, you’re destined to win,” the man gestured bigly.  
  
“Really?” the warlord asked. He figured it couldn’t hurt to have some supernatural support. “How do you know this?”  
  
“The cards told me!” the cloaked man produced a set from his belt.  
  
“Show me? Show me how I’m going to win!” the warlord wasn’t sure he believed, but his men would. And that was important for morale.  
  
Master Plo and Bultar had circled around to the far side of the village.  
  
Bultar checked on Kenobi through her scopes. “Ah, here come the cards. He’s playing a magician again, how predictable,” Bultar sarcastically whispered to herself.  
  
Master Plo spoke into his wrist com, “We have located them.”  
  
“Yes,” Lord Tarkin’s voice answered, “We will send in the bombers.”  
  
“What?” Bultar’s response was too loud, perhaps, but she just couldn’t believe it.  
  
“No, there are hostages, please let us handle it,” Master Plo remained calm.  
  
“We have a lock on your position, the gunships are on their way,” Lord Tarkin ignored the Jedi’s request, without so much as acknowledging it. Then the connection was terminated.  
  
Koon looked at his padawan.  
  
“They can’t do this! We’ll all be killed!” Bultar whispered angrily.  
  
Master Plo’s brow furrowed to register concern around the eye shields, “No matter what, we need to hurry.”  
  
Some of the warlord’s men brought a table from one of the ruined huts. The wizard and the warlord sat on either side of it on whatever debris they could find for chairs. All the men with blasters were paying attention, even if they could not get close enough to see. They’d put their lot in with their leader. His destiny was theirs. His destruction was surely theirs too. They were invested in knowing his fate.  
  
Kenobi dealt out the deck, his hands putting on an elaborate shuffling display that was entertaining to watch. His hands seemed impossibly dexterous, like any good magician practiced at sleight of hand. At some points the cards seemed to jump, defying the laws of physics.  
  
He dealt out the cards in a formation for divination. “Just as I saw before,” Master Kenobi bluffed. It was a standard sabacc deck, but Kenobi managed to sound like he knew exactly what he was talking about to tell the warlord what he wanted to hear no matter which cards appeared, “See here, one of coins. That is a reference to worldly power, which will soon be yours. Master of Sabers, that is knowledge. Which you are getting from me. Here, ah yes, the Evil One. But here in a low position, that is Lord Tarkin….”  
  
The guerrilla leader nodded, “We’ll regroup! I’ll never capitulate to the Tarkins!”  
  
His men laughed, relieved. Some whooped tentatively. A few chanted his name.  
  
As they spoke, everyone was watching the conversation. The villagers were still cowering, but their captors attention was elsewhere.  
  
Obi-Wan swept the cards and put them in his belt pouch, getting ready to reach for his weapon.  
  
Bultar and Master Koon were making their way toward the villagers. If all went according to plan, they’d get to them and take out the guards before anyone got shot.  
  
“What’s this?” Master Plo bent to inspect the seeming mole holes that littered the ground around the prisoners. Suddenly, he looked up.  
  
“What’s that sound,” Bultar asked.  
  
Ships appeared overhead screaming, bombing the area. A shell was dropped.  
  
Obi-Wan jumped away for cover. The another shell screamed towards them. The villagers ran. Guerrillas began to fire on them, Plo Koon deflected some bolts away. Bultar looked at the holes again, a realization dawned on her.  
  
“Master! The holes, they’re for mines!” Bultar shouted.  
  
A villager exploded in a spray of blood and flame.  
  
A shell landed from above and disintegrated the warlord and several of those around him.  
  
Bultar attempted to levitate some of the mines out and float them away.  
  
Zerlina had been dragged away by her mother, who was gripping her hand and running away towards the trees. She was struggling to run without getting tripped up by all the cloth. The eye holes had slipped, so she couldn’t see anything. Clara hit a mine and was thrown backwards. Lina fell to the ground and braced her fall with her hands. The sound of the explosion made her afraid to move, so she held still. She slowly lifted the burkah to peek out, looking at the ground around her. Mole holes everywhere.  
  
Obi-Wan shouted to Bultar, “Grab them!” Each reached out a hand and closed their eyes.  
  
Zerlina felt herself being pulled up through the air, landing in the wizard’s arms. Bultar caught Clara, but the figure seemed too small.  
  
Obi-Wan and Bultar looked at each other with wide eyes.  
  
Zerlina threw off the cloth and took a deep breath. She looked at her mother. Both her legs were missing.  
  
Zerlina froze, the scream lodged stuck in her throat.  
  
What villagers were left were evacuated that night by Jedi relief agencies. Lina went to sleep that night in a hospital bed, tended by androids, on a starship in space.  
  
–  
  
Rishi  
  
Queen Zerlina Concordia of Abrion went out to her balcony, as she did first thing every morning. From the upper floor, she could see down into her garden, over the fortress wall down to the lake. At the lake’s edge was parked a massive dreadnought that served as their city. The ship’s hull was covered with vegetation to make it’s shape indistinct, so snaking vines had been woven over the ship like a blanket to make it’s manufactured lines look more organic. This time of year, the new leaves were light green, while the old were still dark.  
  
The dreadnought was a Republic era war ship that had been sold to the Rothana Heavy Engineering company after the war for policing. Those types of ships were built as massive floating cities, so it was easily repurposed on land once the Democratic Queendom’s forces hijacked it.  
  
Most of the population lived on the ship and it’s systems were maintained. As a precaution, it was also kept flight worthy as part of their people’s tactical plans against Imperial invasion. Though, Lina’s people had been there for more years than one could count on both hands.  
  
This tactic of keeping most assets in a vehicle was based on a system used in Imperial colonization. The Empire had bases manufactured to attached directly into pre-fabricated components, so they could be up graded, moved, or re-used elsewhere. The massive ship worked just as well.  
  
The queen’s husband, Commander Cody had worked for the Empire himself, he knew their strategies and methods. He knew what worked. And what to plan against. They had mining tunnels leading to bunkers that could survive all known manners of bombardment. A ray shield net was set up over the planet itself. Their new moon colony had a long range listening station.  
  
Jango Fett clones had had a lot of experience at having their existence threatened, so a paranoid frame of mind was so normal as to be a cultural trait. Cody channeled this energy into designing an artfully sophisticated defenses for his planet, or out-maneuvering whatever pests the Empire used as proxies. They kept their sector more or less secure. Their relative longevity had allowed their people at home some well-earned peace. There were children in that colony who had never seen war.  
  
Winter was ending in the mountains. The tentative leaves of bulb flowers were beginning to emerge in the garden beds. Lina took out a few scoops of kanos grain from a crate and filled the bird feeders. On schedule, her house droid brought her a cup of caf.  
  
“Thank you, Otis,” she made sure to say. She didn’t want to hurt its feelings.  
  
The droid had become downright sensitive. Otis was a CLL-8 Prison Battle Droid model. Not much in the way of a face for facial expression and its hands were blasters. Still, somehow it was able to express a certain amount of its sentience in personality. The droid clicked, gestured and squealed questioningly like a baby.  
  
“No, Cody was due back yesterday, but he probably had to go check in with Intelligence first. I’ll bet he didn’t want to disturb me. I haven’t been sleeping well,” Lina stretched her neck from side to side.  
  
Otis made a succession of noises.  
  
She scratched it on the head like a pet. It liked it when she did that. Otis had seen Cody interacting with his pet tooka and wanted to assert a similar relationship with its human.  
  
“Bad dreams. It’s stress or hormones or something,” she dismissed. “I must be tossing and turning again. A couple of nights ago, I somehow hurt myself.”  
  
She had woken up one morning to a pain in her neck. When she checked in the mirrors she saw weird bruises, which she thought could be attributed to her hair wrapping around her neck or resting with her elbow poking against it. When she thought of it, she absentmindedly reached up to touch her neck. She shivered. She grabbed a robe off of a chair and wrapped herself in it.  
  
They heard a series of shrieks as a crowd of cuzzies came tumbling out the garden door below running off to the village bird coop to retrieve some breakfast.  
  
“Kids are up,” Lina smiled as she watched them. So happy.  
  
Like many a typical morning there, Cody was probably in the kitchen. Blue would be out rounding up some other brothers from the village houses around and the clones would set to feeding their small army. Soon, they’d have a right mess going. The dining room would soon fill with children eating their omelets, with their doting papas and uncles wiping mouths and scooping forkfuls into little faces.  
  
The children, the “cuzzies”, were the resource everyone was most protective of. Lina had never been able to figure out why children weren’t priorities under most governments she’d ever seen. They might regulate who could have them, or legislate that women had to carry pregnancies, but then allow the children to remain vulnerable to violence and exploitation, and to keep them in poverty.  
  
Clones were used to taking care of their young brothers, so they valued the young. Most never though they’d have kids, so it was a treat. In addition to being devoted daddies, no one could compete with army clones for their training and organization. To say nothing of their creativity. These men had been made to kill and destroy, but they were capable of so much more. It just depended on what the priorities of the people governing their lives were.  
  
Her whole life, Lina had always been angered by the cruel things people did to each other without caring. She had always wished there was someone to just make it stop. But nobody had ever listened to her. On the scale of power in the galaxy, her voice was completely inconsequential.  
  
Where Lina had come from, women weren’t supposed to be anything but currency, to increase a family’s status and circumstances by making a match with someone better off than her parents had been. As the only child of a widowed mother, everything had depended on her. Her mother enforced her virtue by trying to cut her off from other people. Zerlina at least had only a mother. She knew other girls who were arranged into marriages they didn’t welcome because their family wanted the cash. Or, for even poorer folks, some fathers signed their daughters over to men who would pay to ‘marry’ them for the few months or even days, only to be able to divorce them when the men returned to wherever they’d been visiting from. Then the fathers would sell them to the next man. And the next. All perfectly legal and acceptable, even according to the strictest religious law allowed by their people. Women obeyed men’s orders at threat of fists and feet.  
  
When the residents of Lina’s and the surrounding villages had been re-located by the Jedi relief charity to Coruscant, Lina had gone to school, where they taught different things than that. She had discovered her new place where she was told women could be anything they wanted. But she had never seen the system on Coruscant do anything to help her. She was poor, inexperienced, uneducated, caring for her disabled mother, she had not a tool in the world with which to better her situation. Her mother criticized her constantly for things that she thought would make men like her less. Nothing was going to save her.  
  
Her life’s journey had come so far. She had nearly everything she’d ever dreamed of.  
  
Nearly.  
  
Lina dressed and left her room and walked past a small mural. She had painted it in a place she knew she would pass every day as a part of her routine. It was right outside her bedroom so it was the last thing she thought of when she went to bed at night, and the first thing she thought of in the morning. So that she wouldn’t forget to think about her every day. The mural was a portrait of her daughter, Alis.  
  
Lina’s daughter had been taken away from her by the Empire. They hadn’t laid eyes on each other in a decade and a half. Lina was inside out knowing she could not know what her little girl might have endured all alone.  
  
Every part of her wanted to take action, but she had no idea what to do. She hadn’t been trained for that. She had always reassured herself it was just a matter of time. Her people were doing everything they could. Yet, because there was no one there who understood how much it hurt, Lina felt all alone in her grief. Her daughter remained far, far away.  
  
The sad feeling refused to abate over the years. It gnawed at her with caustic guilt any time she tried to enjoy anything. Even her own other children. She’d grown used to keeping it hidden. To perform being as happy as she thought her people deserved. That life of purpose for her family was what kept her afloat.  
  
But her heart was under a curse.  
  
–  
  
Cody was not at breakfast, so after the kids were taken off to school, Lina walked over to the village barn to check on the animals. The kids had said a bird in the coop had died, so she wanted to check and make sure it wasn’t something contagious. She tossed the birds some feed, then entered the barn. The dead bird had been taken out and put on the compost heap. Lina thought it looked like an animal must have gotten in. The neck was at a weird angle.  
  
Cody’s tooka chirped inquisitively.  
  
“Don’t play innocent, you probably just did it for fun,” Lina reminded herself to get a crew to check the mesh to make sure to block any holes.  
  
The new clones were there mucking and feeding the eopies. They all stood up straight when they saw her come in. There were the four from the Meebur Gascon, as well as the two from Clavius Moon station, they were all living together across from the Queen’s house in the village rest house. They had been cleared to move around the colony on their own, now part of the tribe.  
  
To prove their loyalty, they had all voluntarily submitted to having their wrist tags scanned. The Queendom now had all information that had ever been recorded on them. The men had allowed the invasion of privacy because they wanted to prove their innocence. Fiver, a clone who came in with them had committed a bombing. But that Fiver had been an aberration. The colony was seemingly able to forgive the new guys for their association with him, especially if they denounced him. It was easy to do, since they hadn’t really known him before.  
  
“Did you guys already have breakfast?” she held out a basket of leftover omelet sandwiches. “Hey, have you guys seen Cody around?”  
  
Gil looked towards the door and whistled, “Here comes Captain Rex!!”  
  
Lina felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She turned to see Captain Niner arrive, all dressed up.  
  
“You headed out, there, Chief?” Timi asked with a full mouth, scarfing quickly or else he wouldn’t get his share competing against the other brothers.  
  
Niner blushed. He had spent an awful lot of time in front of the mirror. ‘Being Captain Rex’ was a turn of phrase that clones had always used to mean brothers who were always checking how they looked in the mirror. The good captain had done it a lot.  
  
“You’ve received housing assignments in the city?” Lina asked. The spaces on the dreadnought city had been subdivided and made over into comfortable living space. The massive ship had more than enough room for enough apartments and room to spare. There was always competition and waiting lists for better sections, so official assignments could take time as people were reshuffled.  
  
“Yeah, we’re already moved in, just getting the places comfortable,” Niner replied. “Should be done this afternoon.”  
  
“I’ll come down to visit soon,” Lina told them. The founders of the Rishi colony lived in the original village that overlooked the city. The official name of the place was The Village of Screw You Palpatine because Cody had made the mistake of putting it up to a vote. So when the Rothana clones arrived and they all pulled off the heist of the dreadnought, Cody named that himself.  
  
He’d said he named the place a name ‘he knew his wife liked’. He knew it since she’d chosen it for the thing most precious to her. The colony of Oriya Alis.  
  
“So where are you going looking so sharp?” Lina asked, offering the basket.  
  
Niner put a palm up in refusal. He was too nervous to eat. And he’d already cleaned his teeth.  
  
One of the Clavius Moon guys, Tres, grabbed for another sandwich, “He has a meeting with the Prime Ministra. You want us to come with? Are you in trouble?”  
  
“How do I get in trouble?” Loagy asked.  
  
Gil slapped his hand hard.  
  
“I have to submit my mission report, numbwit,” Niner bragged adjusting his clothes a little. “And I definitely want to do it alone and in person. Is Cody around? I need to speak with him.”  
  
“He’s not with you?” Lina’s eyebrows shot up. He hadn’t been seen by any of the kids at breakfast either.  
  
“Yeah, nah,” Niner hedged, “We got separated, he said he’d find his way back. Why, is something wrong?”  
  
“I’m sure he’s fine,” the queen didn’t look sure, but she didn’t want anybody to panic if there was nothing to panic about.  
  
–  
  
Lina went to work a while. She spent the morning touring the communal farms. Within a few hours she looked visibly fatigued, so she pleaded a case of too much sun. She then went home and alone to her own room. She didn’t want to cry in front of anyone. She didn’t want to cry at all. Yet her heart wouldn’t listen to her head.  
  
There had been no sign of Cody all day. Lina began trying to raise him on any of their forms of communication. The only thing she’d succeeded in doing was breaking a wall mirror. She knew what no response probably meant, but she couldn’t bear to think of everything that meant. She had no time for grief. She had no choice but to focus on the moment. Yet, there was nothing she could do to push aside the weight of facing her future. She had meant to throw the comlink against the wall, but hit the mirror accidentally. The little disaster had just served to make her slip over the edge. So she was sitting in her room crying.  
  
Her feeling of dread was made all the worse by the jarring memory of her dream. Even if one didn’t subscribe to oneiromancy, like Lina’s mother used to, one had to admit that the subconscious could tell you things.  
  
It was the night before she’d woken up with her injury, she’d dreamt she was lying beside her husband, as she always did, close by, absentmindedly tracing the scars on his skin with her fingertip. But in the dream he was crying. She’d just told him what she always did when he cried. That he was sentimental. In the dream, when she said it, she felt a chill. Then all of a sudden Cody said, “His Excellency believes that he might be tempted to ally with you for sentimental reasons. I know who he is!” She’d jumped awake and afright in a cold sweat.  
  
Remembering it there, sitting helplessly on the edge of her bed, with her broken mirror, she’d had time to let herself cry without having to answer any questions.  
  
Lina and Cody’s daughters came bursting in downstairs in the foyer with the ‘Intelligence Service’ behind them, “Moooooom! Where’s dad?” Nau called.  
  
Lina wiped her face on her sheet and came out onto the landing. The face must have looked like she was embarrassed. She felt like she’d been caught at something.  
  
Before she had time to process, the girls had told the story. Of Scarif. Of the Imperial blockade. Of the shield gate.  
  
Lina took a breath, looking at the girls. Their brave faces. All the protocols, all the drills, all the planning took over. She didn’t need to feel. Through study and practice, they’d learned them. Her army was there ready to enact them.  
  
Lina recovered, put her arms around her children and spoke the words, “All hands on deck….”  
  
\--  
  
Bri and Nau ran across the village to get Shizla, the Commander of the Democratic Queendom’s Military. Shizla and the Intelligence Service went up to Cody’s office to contact the off world cells.  
  
Shizla gave the briefing to both present members of leadership, and those that were attending by holo-com.  
  
“There has been no attack, and as far as we know. No one has reported aggression. Although we have not heard back from all of our friends in the sector, we continue to try and raise contact. Captain Niner?”  
  
Captain Niner cleared his throat nervously, but he was prepared, “We did encounter Imperials in a skirmish recently, but that was all the way out in the Iego system. Um, it wasn’t coincidence that we were there for OE’s and ran into Moff Pi-ying. Cody admitted that to me, he had sent Moff Pi-ying a taunt, daring him to meet us there.”  
  
Shizla looked at Victory, the chief spy.  
  
He cleared his throat and explained, “Well, this was an intelligence operation, but only Cody knew that. We were trying to draw out Captain Kilian and his task force away from Abrion sector, but the Moff must have wanted to do it personally.”  
  
Niner explained, “That’s how we got separated. I was supposed to grab Captain Kicky, Cody went for the Moff.”  
  
“Try saying that with a straight face, betcha can’t,” Stabbi whispered to Goran in Mando’a.  
  
Vic gave them an expression that meant, ‘Knock it off.’ He was responsible for these little foster brothers. He wasn’t going to let them embarrass him in front of Shizla.  
  
Shizla had been naval commander on the Rothana mission that rescued Vic and over a million of his closest brothers from certain death. Rothana brothers held her in as much esteem as Cody.  
  
Vic went on, “Yeah, and Sotna took possession of the prisoners and released them, as per another intelligence operation.”  
  
“So is there a chance Tegaanalur could still be in prison if the Moff is holding him?” Shizla knew how it mostly went with Cody. She’d broken him out a few times. Or sometimes he’d just turn up, breaking out of custody before his people even knew he was gone.  
  
Vic had already checked around, “The guys who were on the OE said they saw a ship leaving Iego...”  
  
Niner confirmed, “Yes, just exactly in the shape of a blue and white spear.”  
  
Victory nodded, “We’re familiar with that one. That is none other than the Carrion Spike.” Victory tried to say it with a straight face to seem serious.  
  
Sh’ehn did not feel like helping his boss, “Aka ‘Masochist’s Vibrator’, ‘Whilhuff’s Creepy Compensation’ ‘If Misogyny was a Ship’ and ‘DeezDeek’.’”  
  
“Why?” Niner asked, it sounded like nonsense to him.  
  
“Who do you think made these up?” Stabbi clued him in on the inside joke.  
  
Niner wondered why Niki wasn’t there.  
  
“So where is ‘DeezDeek’ now?” Shizla asked.  
  
Stabbi whispered to Niner, “Now picture her saying it...”  
  
Niner nodded, “Ah.”  
  
Victory answered, “DeezDeek, it is public record, is back home on Eriadu.”  
  
Goran put in, “I’ll reach out to Our Friends There.” The local distributor for their entertainment endeavors geared at the Eriadan market. “See if they’ve heard anything. There’s at least a chance he hasn’t been terminated. Maybe.”  
  
Those present chuckled nervously. Cody had always done his very best to antagonize Grand Moff Tarkin specifically. Cody had probably already been dead for days.  
  
At least Cody got to go out like himself. Making his enemies furious enough to want to kill him face to face.  
  
Shizla looked at the holo-projector, which had the hologram of Scarif.  
  
“If they haven’t attacked, is it possible they’re not here for us?” Shizla needed to know what kind of time they had in order to choose the proper plans.  
  
“The appearance of that much Imperial hardware means they’re staking a claim, at least on a piece of our sector. We call ourselves ‘of Abrion’. It makes us look weak if that’s there without us at least benefiting from it. Better if we can convince them to leave voluntarily or by force,” Blue was speaking business as usual. “But if they offer a deal, maybe we make it. It worked the last time they came. They illegally gave us weapons and supplies and left us alone. Even if their long term objective is to take over, they probably don’t want to commit that much yet. But conflict will be inevitable.”  
  
Shizla thought for a minute to collect her thoughts and decide. Then she took a breath. Then, almost by instinct, she felt something suspicious. “The shield gate. That is defensive. But the blockade is in space. If the shield is not protecting the fleet, the fleet is protecting...the gate. What’s there?” 

  


–  
  
As a civilian, the queen would not be responsible for the security. There were plenty of qualified people around for that. Instead, she went to seek council.  
  
“Cody’s missing,” the queen told her Prime Ministra.  
  
It was news of an official nature, yet Niki could hear the sadness in Lina’s voice.  
  
Niki wasn’t necessarily worried about that on it’s surface. Cody had a way of turning up.  
  
Niki was silent for a few moments. Calculating.  
  
Lina got nervous and deflected, “It was always so cold down here.” She rubbed her arms.  
  
Niki resided in the old warden’s apartment of the prison mine. Cody had been the place’s last warden. The room in which they were standing was where Lina and Cody met and devised their plan to deliver the planet from Imperial rule, if you believed the story they told. Niki suspected there was more to it than that, but there always is.  
  
“What can I say? Twi’leks run hot,” Niki managed. She was wearing nothing more than a loose nightgown of soft silk.  
  
Niki’s protocol droid brought the queen some tea infused with a mild sedative.  
  
The queen was going to have to sleep a while before addressing the people. She looked poorly. It was important she look composed. People’s feelings followed hers. Niki’s duty was to keep the state running so as little as possible would change.  
  
“Shizla will come to us here after the meeting. Tell us what they’ll need,” Niki reminded her. “You can have a lie down in my room. I’ll tweak one of the speeches we have on file. We can broadcast colony wide tonight. Just tell people he is MIA, tell them we are prepared and tell them what we will be doing in the next few days. We can go into total lock down as long as we know we got nobody suss,” Niki didn’t think there was anyone new to account for after the Clavius Moon guys.  
  
“Oh no, Kothlis commed yesterday. They’ve got two new people, a couple,” Lina remembered.  
  
“House arrest,” Niki dismissed. She was close enough to get a good look at the bruises on Lina’s neck. She knew a Force choke when she saw one. The pattern of the collapsed capillaries was faint, but distinctive. “Lina, what happened to your neck.”  
  
“Restless sleep, I guess,” the queen didn’t want to admit to letting her imagination run away with her. So she reasoned it had to be something she did to herself.  
  
“Like from bad dreams?” Niki got to the point.  
  
“Yes…,” Lina didn’t want to be worried.  
  
“Tell me,” Niki said in the imperative, but gently.  
  
“It was Cody...I’ve been missing him,” Lina admitted the weakness. “I know it’s silly, but I get lonely. It was one of those nice dreams, you know the vivid ones that actually feel like wishes. The ones you want to remember even after you wake up, because they make you happy in the day too. The ones that give nice feelings.” Lina had taken her gloves off to drink her tea. “He was crying. All of a sudden, he said something strange. Then he was gone. I can’t help but feel it means something, but I don’t think I’m ready to say the words.”  
  
“I understand,” Niki nodded. She was more worried than ever. This Darth Vader creature was proving to be more than she could control or even keep entirely at bay. Now she had to worry that she was letting dark forces in.  
  
“What should I say about the fleet at Scarif?” Lina asked.  
  
“Tell them the truth. There is a huge Imperial fleet parked at our doorstep. That we are not sure of their intentions, but we won’t antagonize them for now. Then on the down low, send those idiots from the Intelligence Service to take a recon mission over there and get a closer look. Return to base order at least gets us ready if they take a swing.”  
  
“Agreed. And...how will we get in touch with Sotna?” Lina remembered.  
  
Niki sighed. Lina had remembered before she had.  
  
“If she would ever check in, I’d tell her to get home. Though, she’s probably safer than we are right about now,” Niki joked inappropriately.  
  
\--  
  
The mourning period was protocol. During the Clone War, there was no official mourning among clones for their own dead. Such a thing would have been impossible, since there were so many and an astonishing number had just had to be left behind lying where they died, or in holes in the ground or orbiting around space. Clones were never allowed action to mourn a passing. Yet loss was felt.  
  
As a veteran of said conflict, Cody didn’t want to appear like he thought he was any better than his brothers from Kamino. He didn’t want to claim he deserved more dignity than had been allowed his brothers.  
  
But the younger Rothana clones had never lived through a time when Jango Fett had been alive. Cody was the brother who had rescued them from torture and certain death. He was considered by all of them to be like a father.  
  
His loss was something that was felt. Things moved slower, with a tone of solemnity. They were kinder to each other. A lot of people set to doing some serious thinking about what mattered to them. 

  


Eriadu, Tarkin compound

  


Nelli arrived the next day to the guard house, carrying laundry.  
  
“I bring,” she told the droid.  
  
The droid nodded. Yes, she was bringing something. It looked like a bed sheet, but that failed to make the droid curious. Droids didn’t sleep, never mind use bedding.  
  
Nelli put in the code and opened the lock on the gate house. Cody barely had time to stand up before she threw the sheet over him.  
  
She tried to cut eye slits to make it a burkah, but she had a little trouble with the scissors, so it had a few too many holes, but not so holey anyone could see under.  
  
“Now what?” Cody asked, entrusting himself to her.  
  
“Now we leave,” Nelli informed him.  
  
“I don’t know if this will work...” he looked at the costume dubiously out of his eye holes.  
  
“They said their orders were to watch ‘HIM’. If I call you ‘her’ they won’t think they’re disobeying orders,” Nelli insisted.  
  
“I didn’t know droids could be that stupid. But I guess they’re programmed to not allow for distinctions,” Cody grumbled.  
  
“Trust me, they are here. Mrs. Tarkin insists, she hates people using ‘wrong’ pronouns,” Nelli laughed.  
  
Nelli marched right past the droids, waving a hand and said in Basic, “I go.”  
  
“Who is that?” the droid asked, not really curious, but it did have orders.  
  
“I,” Nelli indicated herself. Then she pointed at Cody, “She.” Nelli insisted it, as if that answered the question.  
  
Cody waved half heartedly under his costume.  
  
The droid’s eye lights blinked off and on a few times, “You?...Go?...she?”  
  
“Go!” Nelli waved her hand across the droid’s field of vision.  
  
To Cody’s absolute astonishment, the droid simply went back to its post.  
  
“And people call me retarded?” Nelli joked. “They’re the ones who programmed those machines, not me.”  
  
Cody stifled laughter under his bedsheet. He didn’t like that word himself, but she was saying people called her that. He was sure it was truth. He couldn’t believe how effective the costume seemed to be at making people not look at him. Her plan was simply brilliant.  
  
“You need food and drink. We can go to the kitchen. Just sit in the corner and peel vegetables, no one will think anything of it,” Nelli ordered.  
  
“Are…,” Cody remembered and adopted a slight falsetto to play his role, “Are you sure you need my help? You’ve been doing everything so far...” Cody didn’t want it to sound condescending like clapping for a toddler. “I have friends on world. But they’re not close, we’ll have to get to them.” Our Friends There had their distribution headquarters about seven hundred kilometers south of the capital.  
  
“Women don’t go out alone in the city. As long as you keep on the clothes, you’ll look like my mother taking care of her poor daughter,” Nelli told him blandly, as if anybody could have realized it. It seemed simple to her.  
  
Cody chuckled softly.  
  
They went to the kitchen and worked at prep cooking for lunch, sneaking food as they worked. Just two in a crowd of do stuffs working. Cody found himself absentmindedly making radish roses as the two of them chatted on about this and that.  
  
“At the end of the day, people go out,” Nelli mumbled at him in between tubers. “People sleep in the orchards on the hill outside the gates, there we can decide what to do next.”  
  
Being a man of science, literally, Cody would have denied taking luck seriously. There was no such thing, in his experience. But there were fortunes. Still, there were some coincidences or chance meetings that seemed too fortuitous to explain. Cody had to admit, those times, his heart told him there had to be more to it. And once he thought about it, he didn’t want to believe that it was coincidence.  
  
Kenobi had said back on Ryloth that sometimes be best ally is a knowledgeable local. Now here Cody was following a path he couldn’t see, but that seemed to go where he ought, with a companion who knew things he couldn’t. He felt somehow well equipped all of a sudden.  
  
“They said you were arrested because you were a king. So are you really?” Nelli asked as they worked. “Why would that be bad, I don’t understand?”  
  
Cody cleared his throat and muttered in a slight falsetto, “Just married to a queen.” Being on his wife’s world, he couldn’t help but see her hand in his fortune. 

–


	2. Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rex thinks that his wish has backfired

Coruscant- Third year of the war

Rex was proud he was able to manage three plates at once and he had arranged the food on them pleasingly, just like in a restaurant.  
  
Niki and Wolffe were sitting at the table. She had her feet in Wolffe’s lap and he was massaging them. She squirmed and giggled pleasantly whenever it tickled.  
  
Niki liked feeling waited on, Wolffe always said. It made her feel valuable. What was willingness if not a value judgment? And what was love but willingness? Wolffe always seemed to have a lot to say, not all of which Rex understood.  
  
Rex sat down and looked at Niki and Wolffe, seemingly waiting to see what they thought of his cooking.  
  
He had crashed on the couch to sleep off the previous night’s piss up. To thank them, Rex had gone down to the bodega to buy some things to cook a breakfast while they were engaged in their morning lovemaking. They were loud, it was awkward.  
  
Rex knew neither of those two could manage more than heating up frozen things in the express cooker. That was good enough for them. Rex privately thought he could do better.  
  
He actually enjoyed cooking, and yet Wolffe was the one who stayed in a place with a kitchen. It seemed a waste.  
  
Wolffe and Niki were looking at each other with laughing eyes.  
  
Rex felt himself blush. Not necessarily from embarrassment, just from the consciousness of their feelings. Their passing glances had meanings that were no doubt born of their private conversations.  
  
Thinking of that intimacy that was just for the two of them made Rex conscious of the void in his heart. He’d come home a few weeks before and the girl he thought was his was pregnant and married to somebody else.  
  
He didn’t know what he’d expected. He’d been away on classified missions for the better part of a year. But nothing can really prepare you for that kind of foolish hurt that grows out of the ruins of childish hope.  
  
He deliberately thought about something else, a story that went a different way.  
  
“This reminds me of this time on Saleucami, when we were there chasing down General Grievous. Did I ever tell you about that time I got shot?” he asked, abruptly. Surfacing like a breaching sea serpent’s back.  
  
“Why does this remind you of getting shot?” Niki moved her feet to the floor and put out a death stick that was smouldering, so she could concentrate on her food.  
  
“No, I mean, after that. I ran into this brother, he had deserted. He was living with a Twi’lek. He was raising her kids with her. They called each other married. I don’t know if they had really gotten married or just lived like they were, like you two,” he coated the hash he’d made with hot sauce, thinking of that dinner he shared with Cut and his beautiful family. Cut had called him out on how he was looking at them.  
  
Niki laughed. “A Twi’lek. Maybe you clones have a type,” she took a bite, then reached for the hot sauce.  
  
“Nah, I like humans. Fives liked Togrutas. Jesse’s girlfriend is a Pantoran,” Rex listed.  
  
“Bly had that affair with that Muun guy. Oddball tried out the Ithorian professional girl. I think Treach did it with a Quarren. What do you think it is like to kiss all those tentacles?”  
  
Niki had an idea, “She probably didn’t use them on his face.”  
  
“Ahem,” Rex blushed again. This time from embarrassment, “Of course, it’s more about the individual girl than the species, but we all have different things we find attractive. It probably depends on our own individual experiences. Although, I have been wondering, C.C., do you actually find clones attractive, I mean, your choosing to work with us, is there something about us you like?”  
  
Since he found out Lina had moved on, Rex’s self esteem had taken a blow. He really could have used a compliment, at least.  
  
Niki had never really considered looks much in her impressions of people. So much else about them was more telling. “I don’t know. I like to make lots of money. There are tons of you guys and you all want one thing. I am a rich woman from working with you.” At least relative to her own terms. “Because of what I do and what I was, I’m not welcome in normal society. Neither are you guys. I guess I am drawn to you guys in some ways. I understand you. You’re also a lot of fun.”  
  
She felt warm looking at Wolffe as he happily ate his food.  
  
“And cute. Some of you are handsomer than others, of course,” she touched Wolffe’s cheek, “Right, Old One Eye?” Niki only had eyes for one of them.  
  
Rex wished it wasn’t so obvious how envious he felt.  
  
–

Rishi, Twenty years later  
  
The queen squinted at Rex. He was obviously taken aback to see her. There was no hiding it.  
  
“Lina?” Rex was struggling to wrap his brain around it.  
  
“Do I know you?” Queen Concordia scrutinized. She hadn’t seen him in twenty years, he could probably be any brother to her.  
  
Rex didn’t need to lie. He knew all about her. “Of course, I used to eat at your restaurant back in the day. The one in ‘Rat Bottom.” He felt he was dangerously close to blowing his cover for this mission, though. He didn’t know if it was safe to reveal his identity. Rex didn’t know who else might be there, or how receptive they might be towards the Rebellion. Or even what Lina’s feelings about him were these days.  
  
Rex stuck to character and put his arm around his ‘lover’ Alexsandr and explained, “Lina was my brother Rex’s girlfriend...back in the day.” Rex was struggling to make it sound less significant.  
  
Kallus smirked, “THE Captain Rex?”  
  
“Uh...Maybe I told you about Rex,” THE actual Captain blushed.  
  
Kallus leaned in, “Maybe once or twice,” he intoned it overtly dripping with sarcasm.  
  
“It was ages ago,” Lina blushed and smiled that little smile, thinking of a person she didn’t know was there before her, “I’m so sorry you’re cooped up at the moment. I just wanted to reassure you both that this is just a precaution.”  
  
“Well, if there is anything we can do to reassure you...” Rex offered, perhaps too readily.  
  
Kallus had worked undercover more than once in his career. He was familiar with the rules. Militant or criminal organizations typically demanded an initiation, either by action or ceremony. It was understood that once you went through it, an oath was taken to adopt the life and stay loyal. On penalty of death if they ever caught you. Pretty standard, really.  
  
“I think you’ll probably be cleared to move about after the wedding,” the queen informed them.  
  
“Wedding?” Rex thought he had misheard.  
  
“We don’t let just anybody come and stay here and have a part of the family company. Clones or family by recognized unions only. That’s the law,” Lina explained.  
  
Kallus knew this was serious, but he was still finding it funny. That was some type of initiation he had not encountered thus far.  
  
“So...there’s….got to be a wedding...” Rex was still in shock.  
  
“Well, yes. Non clone family members must be recognized officially by signing an agreement. I didn’t make the law, but as queen, I am charged with execution,” Lina explained. Then she grew visibly excited, “I can even perform the ceremony for you!”  
  
Rex couldn’t help the creeping feeling that he’d been had by one of those demon servant clauses, where he’d wished for Lina to marry him and this was how it had been trickily interpreted.  
  
“Well, my lady,” Kallus chuckled nervously and placed his hand on his chest modestly, “Perhaps this will sound ridiculous, since we’ve just run away together, but we hadn’t really talked about taking that step.”  
  
“It’s nothing to be afraid of, legal families are however you want them, we just have to make sure everyone knows what they’re getting into, in case disputes arise the group stays together. In this case, it’s a contract just between the two of you. It is how ever you want it to be, as long as you both agree to the terms. If there are disagreements, there is a process for litigated discussion. It’s flexible. You just make it about the things that are important to you. If you still want to screw other people, or make rules about who gets the pets, or what to eat on what day of the week, or how much of a cash settlement each gets if the terms of the contract aren’t adhered to. We don’t care, we just have to have something as reference so things are fair. And of course there are inheritance laws,” she looked at Kallus when she said it, trying to get an idea about how interested he was.  
  
The family laws had been devised by the Prime Ministra, who had never been the type to boil down relationships to things like her fantasy wedding. She and Wolffe had constantly negotiated and renegotiated their terms with each other, no state intervention needed. Somehow, with all the communication between them, they had made the thing work. Laws had been nothing but a hindrance. So she legislated relationships like contracts. People could love whoever they wanted, she didn’t think the law had any right meddling in affairs of the heart. It didn’t eliminate spiteful feelings, but it definitely helped keep the peace.  
  
Rex, of course, had imagined his wedding. Like a beautiful ending of some light hearted musical holo-vid. At a certain time in his life, it had been a welcome daydream he used to hold on to, when he was fighting for his life on a world with no sunlight. Or when he was trying to catch a little sleep, sitting up in a full armor kit in filthy bog water in the rain. Whenever his job felt devoid of purpose and he was about to stop caring, he imagined his wedding as something to look forward to.  
  
He’d think of himself, maybe in his armor, freshly repainted for the occasion. Lina beside him, looking the way she looked right then. His at last. With his best friends. And a tiered cake. Somewhere on a world at peace.  
  
Imagining it still made Rex feel happy. He blushed a little with shame. Lina didn’t know who he was. It didn’t seem right picturing her that way without her knowing.  
  
Kallus covered easily by making Rex’s awkward squirming seem a reaction to him, “Well...then, what are we waiting for?”  
  
Rex shrugged awkwardly, “Well, if we’re going to do this, we should do it right. Is there a traditional clone wedding?” If this was the deal that the demon servant handed him, well, he reckoned he might as well have his fun with it.  
  
Lina smiled that easy smile and didn’t skip a beat. She loved weddings, “Both spouses wear white, of course. Menu is usually seafood, at least that’s what we get the most requests for. How do you feel about raw oysters?”  
  
Kallus shrugged, “If there’s a good mignonette...”  
  
Lina scrutinized, “Hot sauce. From a bottle.”  
  
Rex pointed at Lina and looked at Kallus, “See, she gets it!”  
  
–

After exchanging a few more pleasantries, it was time for her to go. Lina locked her arm on Alexsandr’s and asked him to escort her to the door.  
  
“Is there anything you two need?” she whispered loudly.  
  
Kallus managed to beg a small privilege. They were not quite out of Rex’s earshot, “My Lady, I understand the need to monitor us, since we’re new. But could we have a little private time for conjugals?”  
  
“Oh, of course!,” Lina looked at Rex and covered her smiling mouth with her hand, “I’m sorry, of course you two want to be alone together.”  
  
Rex blushed when he realized what she thought he wanted, “Uh, yeah. It’s been a while.” He scratched the back of his neck and looked at her.  
  
It felt like a lifetime ago. But he still remembered what she’d felt like.  
  
Lina turned to one of her guards, “Please tell Lucky to let these two have some private time at night. We don’t need to watch them after they go to bed. Shall we say from ten to two?” It sounded like a question, but it was a command.  
  
The brother nodded and marched out to relay the message to the security console downstairs.  
  
Lina turned to Kallus, “Okay, Charlie, he’s all yours. I’ll stop by tomorrow to see how you’re doing. Give him a kiss for me,” she kissed Kallus on the cheek and she lingered in the doorway and looked back, seemingly waiting to see if her gift was relayed.  
  
Kallus went to Rex and gave his ‘lover’ a kiss on the lips. Slightly open mouthed. Well, Rex thought, if it was a kiss from her, why not enjoy it? He closed his eyes and leaned in. Rex wasn’t sure if he had enough experience to really compare much, but Alexsandr was a good kisser, he thought. Rex felt light headed. By the time they came up for air, everyone else had left.  
  
\--  
  
They were getting ready for bed that night, by then it was feeling routine. Although compared to Kothlis, these were upgraded accommodations. Like a hotel.  
  
Not that Rex had ever stayed in a hotel himself. Those establishments didn’t serve his kind. But sometimes people who stayed in them invited clones to come. For the usual reason people rented hotel rooms to bring people to. So he’d heard.  
  
Instead of being their beds, the drawers there were filled for them with soaps and clean towels and pajamas. They each took the chance to have a decent wash, although separately.  
  
Rex changed into his pajamas. They were the style of old Kamino uniforms, but out of better fabric and in nicer colors.  
  
Kallus came out from the refresher dressed in an identical outfit.  
  
“What?” Alexsandr looked at him.  
  
“What what?” Rex was confused. He was just sitting on the edge of the bed.  
  
“You were...smiling. It just seems so unlike you,” Alexsandr tucked a strand of hair.  
  
“You look cute,” Rex complimented naturally. He supposed he meant it, too. He was in a good mood just seeing her again.  
  
Kallus sat beside him and retucked the same strand of his hair. Then he kissed Rex once on the mouth for show. That was becoming routine too.  
  
Rex figured Zeb would understand that. He wasn’t taking liberties without cause. Or permission.  
  
Kallus looked up when they heard the village bell tower ring ten, “That should be it. We’re allowed to switch off the cameras.”  
  
Rex made a subtle face at him, as if to say, ‘Watch this.’  
  
He pressed the button repeatedly on a remote they’d given him. It would have given the camera feed an irritating strobe effect on whoever was watching them. Then Rex affected a confusion bordering on senility and looked directly at the camera, “Are...are we invisible? Can you still see us?” He pressed the remote again, “Wait, can they still see us?” Again. “Are they listening? Can they see us?” Again. “Can they see us?”  
  
Rex ran through his confused act a few times until one of the security detail, another Rothana clone they’d seen from Kothlis, had had enough. He came in from wherever the guards were stationed. He showed Rex how the switch worked, specifically and in very loud, slow Basic. Rex continued to act like he found the concept elusive.  
  
Alexsandr and he studied the things the guard carried on his belt that might be put to use if they needed to escape.  
  
Finally, the guard pulled out a pass card and scanned it.  
  
“There, the cameras are off. Happy? I’ll come in and turn them back on in the morning. You two won’t go anywhere,” he laughed.  
  
Rex didn’t like them watching him, but at least he’d learned how to disable them.  
  
They climbed in bed and put out the lights. They had both seemed to agree that just because they were told they weren’t being monitored it didn’t mean that was true. So they took precautions.  
  
They were nose to nose with the bedsheet over them. They spoke in whispers to each other under covers, as if they were shy about what they were doing.  
  
“Do you think she believed that?” he whispered to Kallus. It had been close. Nobody had seen Rex in twenty years, it would be hard to pick him out of a crowd, but he had the idea that the way he was reacting to Lina was calling attention to itself.  
  
“Of course she did. She doesn’t recognize you, obviously. But surely you’re going to tell her who you are. For all you know, she’s waiting for you to come and be her king,” he yawned. “Or maybe she’s a prisoner here and she needs you to free her.” He sounded like he was joking.  
  
“I can’t tell her. Then I’d have to admit we lied to get here. How could they trust us? She’d want to know who you are...no, we stick to my mission plan is we find out what we can. As soon as we can get out of here, we go back to the Rebellion. If they want me to reach out after that, then I can meet her again as myself. I wonder if she knows her daughter is alive? I might try to tell her that much at least.”  
  
“Perhaps you’re right. If this is all until they can trust us, I suppose we’re past explaining,” Kallus shrugged. “I have heard of this organization, though.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Well, I was rather highly placed at my...old job,” Kallus giggled nervously at the absurdity of whispering like they were at a fourth grade sleepover about the Imperial Security Bureau. “From what I know of the Imperial intelligence, the Dorn Qek Aurek are a secessionist organization calling itself a state, advocating for violence against the Empire. They publicly take credit for violence, but only a small fraction can be attributed to them. Typical scare tactic of small groups that are trying to become bigger players. Still, it’s possible she is a vile gangster or an upstart warlord.”  
  
“That’s true, I guess,” Rex agreed, “It doesn’t sound like her, though.”  
  
“There was a credible rumor they were behind the Milagro Massacre. Everyone knew what happened in that place,” Kallus assumed.  
  
“What? I’m sorry, I’ve been on Seelos a long time,” Rex confessed.  
  
“A monastery to a Saint Kleemees on Milagro was converted by the Empire into a reformatory for female sexual deviants. The environment on Milagro was beautiful. It was private. Laws were lax. There were no consequences for whatever Imperials did there. It was expected that the prisoners would die there, so no one would ever tell. The Empire didn’t even pay taxes to the world because the valuable real estate and the facility were technically owned by a religious institution. It was therefore non-profit, classified as a mental hospital, since it was the women who were supposedly sexual deviants and the Imperials their benevolent caretakers. The facility was primarily filled with prostitutes that were arrested working on Coruscant. As a group, they were easily rounded up and convicted for lewdness because everyone knew what neighborhoods they were kept to. It was easy. Public sentiment was not with whores. Under the Emperor’s morality laws, the women were the lawbreakers, not their clients or their agents who controlled them. The laws were enforced whenever His Excellency or his agents felt like distracting citizens with a crackdown. The women were props with all the agency of musical chairs. It was more or less an open secret that a posting on Milagro was a therapeutic job for sexually sadistic doctors and Imperial officers to work out their frustrations. A tour there was considered an initiation into an exclusive club, enjoying their perversions together. They’d laugh, whispering to each other about doing a tour on Milagro, while at their cocktail parties back on Coruscant,” Kallus didn’t sugar coat or assume Rex’s ears were too delicate to hear the truth. “Even most Imperials who knew about it were disgusted, but for some reason, the leadership was reluctant to put a stop to it. Some group, call them what you want, thugs, vigilantes, concerned parties, they blew in the gates, murdered the Imperials inside and made off with the women. Imperial investigators decided it was a pirate raid or native unrest and assumed that the women were kidnapped to be sold as slaves,” Kallus described, “But many people were not sorry to see the place destroyed. At the very least, because of the potential scandal for the Empire if the conditions there were made public. Some, even within Imperial intelligence, said they admired the courage it took to deal with it when the Empire wouldn’t. I myself have actually heard a certain Moff of the grand variety say that he thought the place had been more liability than tactical necessity, so good riddance, and that was no light blasphemy. Due to a similar M.O., a primitive form of what eventually branded itself as the Dorn-Qek-Aurek was considered the most likely suspect, although I was not privy to what evidence they had for that connection.”  
  
This was something Rex could believe his Lina would fight against if given the weapons, like say an army that loved her. It sounded more like her.  
  
Rex found himself drifting off to sleep imagining Lina as the leader of a clone army. In her own beautiful white armor.  
  
He wasn’t necessarily upset about remaining. He didn’t think Lina was the gangster type, but if he had to figure out what her intentions were, that might be a pleasant duty.  
  
–  
  
Zeb pulled the ship out of hyperspace when they reached the Rish system. They passed by the kratered moon.  
  
“So who are these friends of yours?” Laneet asked him.  
  
“I’m not gonna tell you that. They’re my friends and I have to get them back,” Zeb specified.  
  
“Why are they worth it? Most humans I know are just garbage,” she explained.  
  
“Well, I guess I used to feel like you do. When I was younger,” Zeb accepted. “But I’m not like that. They’ve saved my life, I’ve saved theirs. They’re worth a lot to me.” Zeb remembered all too recently seeing Kanan engulfed in flames, Ezra just getting carried away into space by flying creatures, crazy old Gregor getting shot in the heart, Wolffe disappearing with Rex’s money, probably overdosed on drugs at a fueling station somewhere. Enough loss, Zeb thought. Not if he had anything to say about it. The man he wanted to spend his future with was down on that planet somewhere.  
  
Laneet looked out the viewport, unsure of what to respond. She could try to convince him all she wanted. The Lasat was three times her size. He was the one calling the shots.  
  
Zeb flicked at switches to call up the ship’s archive, “This says the moon is uninhabited, we should be able to use it as a vantage point to get a look at what we’re dealing with.” Zeb flew low over the moon to hide their approach towards the planet.  
  
Outside the portal, they were close enough to the moon’s surface that Laneet could see the local variety of neebray mantas swooping in the atmosphere. Then up ahead on the horizon, there were lights “What’s that?” she pointed out the viewport to the lights on the moon’s surface.  
  
“Looks like one of those portable Imperial bases they use for asteroids and the like,” Zeb pointed, “Karabast, I didn’t know the Empire was here.”  
  
“Zeb, outside the port...are those space mines?” Laneet shouted suddenly.  
  
“They’re the projectors for a shield net!” he veered to stay ahead as one reflector after another linked with those around it through rays of lightning. A few ignited to life, shearing off parts of the ship.  
  
“We’re going down!” Zeb tried to steady the ship to a slower spiral, but it quickly accelerated straight to the surface.  
  
The ship fell like a meteor, whipping past clouds, the green canopy of a jungle below, growing ever closer. When suddenly, they crashed. Not to earth, but to a floating surface. A floating city, like those used for gas mining, but not an enclosed interior space. The city floated atop the artificial island moving through the atmosphere, seemingly going where the wind carried it. Above the city, winged creatures circled on the air currents.  
  
The crashing ship came to a stop by striking a massive monument, spreading shattered stone debris and dust in every direction.  
  
Laneet and Zeb ejected from the ship, slowly making their ways out of the wreckage until they stood side by side, shielding their eyes from the sunlight.  
  
When they could see again, they found themselves surrounded by large birds with clawed hands extending from the ends of their feathered wings, holding blasting spears.  
  
“Karabast.” 

  


\--

Lina came by the next morning to bring Rex and Kallus a berry cake. Alexsandr was still sleeping, so Rex and she sat in the common area, side by side on a couch. Her guard droid waited just inside the door portal, aiming its gun hands at Rex.  
  
Rex set about playing host, setting cake on the little plates he found in the kitchen drawer, pouring caf into cups from the thermos she brought.  
  
“My lady, I...don’t mean to be too forward, but how is your little girl?” Rex asked, trying to maintain the appearance of ignorant curiosity. All the while, he was wondering how to let her know what he knew without her knowing it was he who knew it. But then he realized, he didn’t actually know where Alis was or if she was alive, so he couldn’t even tell her where to look. Only Wolffe knew that and he was missing too. Rex was increasingly sure that was no coincidence and he wasn’t sure if he found it reassuring or revolting.  
  
Lina paused a moment, her face seemingly impassive. She smiled just a little, very politely, “I lost her.”  
  
Rex nodded politely. To Rex it felt strange to have Lina seem cagey, keeping him at a distance. He had to remind himself that he was not himself to her, so he couldn’t expect her to be responding to him the way he was used to. He could not expect her to acknowledge their shared experiences by being able to be herself. And maybe he didn’t want her to. Still, he couldn’t escape feeling just a little hurt.  
  
“We’ve been looking, of course,” was all she would elaborate.  
  
“I bet,” Rex responded simply, and changed the subject. “My lady, not that I don’t think you would make a wonderful queen or anything...”  
  
“Alright,” she seemed unsurprised by his awkward compliment.  
  
“But, how are you a queen?” Rex was fishing for any information he could about her situation.  
  
She answered it as if he’d asked how the government worked, “It’s an elected monarchy, a head of state post. I represent the community. So, I guess you could say my people asked me to be,” she shrugged it off. “The people here are my family. We have publicly discussed and voted on everything we’ve done as a group, so it’s democratic. But calling ourselves a queendom is helpful, we find that female leadership can repel the wrong types of allies. If anyone isn’t comfortable with the idea of a woman in charge, well then we know right away how they feel about mutual respect,” Lina stated.  
  
Rex was about to point out that was a generalization, but then he thought about that for a minute and didn’t.  
  
“A queendom sounds romantic,” Lina was acting in her ceremonial capacity on her visits, so she dressed in formal regalia. Today in a white silk dress with red hearts embroidered on the sleeves and hem and, like the day before, with a pair of long gloves.  
  
“Ah. So you do approve of romance? From those marriage contract discussions, I had gotten the impression that you were more clinical about the whole thing,” Rex joked, he handed her the caf.  
  
She looked down briefly as she took the cup from him. Her back stiffened slightly. Someone who knew her less well would not have noticed.  
  
Rex hoped he hadn’t offended.  
  
“Nonsense. Those are our laws, not our character. Just because you legislate against murder, it doesn’t mean you think most people are killers. Romance inspires the best storytellers,” she sipped. “Besides, democracy has gotten bad branding after the Republic turned into such a hypocritical disaster.”  
  
Rex found the fact more of a tragedy than a joke. Nevertheless, she was right.  
  
Lina was exactly who she’d always been, the woman he knew. Rex found that comforting, at least. He had to remind himself that he shouldn’t be paying her such close attention, but he couldn’t help it.  
  
They made eye contact.  
  
He realized he was close enough to her that he could have reached out and touched her. It was the closest he’d been to her in twenty years. His heart hurt so bad it was melting. Rex fancied he could feel the heat radiating off her skin like the lingering coppery burn of a fireball candy on the tongue.  
  
Yet all he felt from her was the sad. He found he wanted to do anything he could to make her happy again.  
  
“Am I interrupting,” Kallus’ tone carried an indignation bordering on cattiness.  
  
Rex realized it must have been pretty obvious how he was feeling by how badly he blushed as if he’d been caught at something.  
  
“Good morning,” Lina said to Kallus. She patted Rex on the arm in a fraternal fashion, to reassure ‘Charlie’. By the pressure of it, Rex somehow read a congratulations.  
  
Rex turned to see his friend, wearing nothing but the pants of the pajama set. His body was objectively good looking, Rex thought. The color was interesting. He had freckles everywhere and his body hair was light.  
  
Lina looked coy, “So Charlie, how did you two meet?”  
  
Alexsandr poured himself a caf, “Well, you know how it goes. We went from trying to kill each other to this.”  
  
Kallus was not speaking in the figurative about either his real or fictional boyfriends, he had met both of them while attempting their terminations. Kallus was happy to have the distraction of crafting his persona. He was struggling not to slip back into his cynical depressive Imperial former self, though his current outlook was bleak. He wasn’t sure he’d ever see Zeb again. At least his friend was there. Knowing they could stay together in this little adventure had made it bearable. Captain Rex was actually good company, at least.  
  
“What about you, my lady? THE Captain Rex? From what I hear, he was quite impressive,” Kallus sat down, put his arm around Rex’s waist and leaned against him, possessively, just as Rex had done to him back on Kothlis.  
  
Rex made a face he hoped Alexsandr read as he meant it. ‘Knock it off!’  
  
Lina smiled shyly, “Well...he’s dead.”  
  
This was the second time in the last few months that someone had come from outside and asked Lina about Captain Rex. The last one had tried to kill her.  
  
Rex did not embrace Kallus back. “My lady, that’s what you think?”  
  
He was distracted because he was genuinely surprised. Though he shouldn’t have been. According to the official records, he and half the 501st were killed in a wreck after the Siege of Mandalore. Still, it hurt him to think that he was dead to her.  
  
“I have no reason to doubt it,” Lina thought these two were insisting on talking about the Captain a bit too eagerly. There was obviously something going on there and she thought she knew what it was.  
  
Kallus wasn’t sure why her tone seemed to have chilled. He was suddenly worried that the woman had been trained in interrogation. She was not there just to visit and comfort them, she was there to lull them. For all they knew, she knew exactly why they were there. Alexsandr worried that if she was not as benign as she seemed, convincing the good captain that she was being duplicitous was going to be a hard sell. He was obviously still smitten.  
  
\--

The birds had Zeb and Laneet tied up and had taken their weapons. Neither of them understood whatever the birds were speaking. They brought them before a bird who wore an elaborate hat made of other birds’ feathers and spit.  
  
The bird in the hat managed to scratch out some semblance of Basic to question them, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”  
  
“We fell, it was an accident. We’re just here to find our friends,” Laneet covered.  
  
“Oh, OUR, now?” Zeb grumbled.  
  
“You wrecked the statue of the savior!” Hatty accused, demonstrating outrage. The bird-people screeched and shrieked horribly in response.  
  
“We didn’t mean to,” Zeb defended, “It was an accident! Our ship fell.”  
  
Hatty waved his staff, “Off worlders and their flying ships are not welcome here!”  
  
“Well, we’ll be going then. Can you tell us who else we might find other people on the planet? The ones we’re looking for are humans,” Laneet still tried to pretend she was in charge. “Maybe give us a ship, too.”  
  
“Silence! We will eat the newcomers to reconsecrate the statue of the savior!” Hatty yelled. The bird-people let up a cacophonous wall of sounds.  
  
They brought out giant grills.  
  
–

“Oh here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into,” Rex spoke to himself in the mirror. He was being fitted by a tailor droid for a formal uniform. A navy uniform no less. It was humiliating. Captain Rex famously hated cloth uniforms back in the day, he’d been repeatedly vocal about navy guys and their cloth uniforms looking weak. Now he was having to go through this sham wedding to his sham boyfriend, dressed up like some blimmin’ navy F.L.O.B.  
  
“Why can’t we just wear something normal?” Rex fussed at the neck.  
  
“And where do you plan to shop while we’re being held in confinement?” Kallus adjusted the collar for him, then straightened his own and looked in the mirror at the two of them.  
  
Alexsandr looked really nice in his, Rex noticed. Not like the wanker he looked to be.  
  
“Well, now, aren’t you two a pair,” Lina was there, with the guard droid. She half covered her mouth with her hand. Tears stood in her eyes. She walked over and locked her arm gently on Rex’s, “Fett boys do look nice in uniform. You look wonderful. So...happy.”  
  
The droid with the gun hands clicked in agreement.  
  
“My lady, why are you crying,” Rex didn’t want to seem creepy, but he didn’t think his concern was out of place.  
  
“I always cry about weddings,” she swiped her eyes with her gloved fingers.  
  
Rex realized he had no idea whether or not that was true. But he thought it seemed likely. She’d cried a lot in the little time he’d had with her.  
  
She took a deep breath and recovered, “We can’t really do a big deal. But we’ll be having the ceremony on the rooftop here, with a few people. We can have a barbecue and hang some lights.”  
  
“My Lady, what happens after?” Rex asked, hopeful that there might still be an out.  
  
Lina insisted. “We have our protocols. Would anything help to reassure you in good faith?”  
  
Rex had done his reading on recent clones that had been declared missing, believed acquired by the DQA, according to his mission file. He had seen a name he recognized.  
  
“Is there a navy brother, someone recent who I might know?”

  


–

Rex had not seen his brother Niner since after Lola Sayu, although he had saved the guy’s life. Rex recognized him, but was sure Niner didn’t know who he was.  
  
“Niner!” Rex had already wracked his brain trying to think of what he knew of this guy. It wasn’t much. Rex didn’t have any navy friends. “It’s me, Seven, well, Surf now. You know me.”  
  
“Oh...yeah?” Niner knew lots of brothers by that name. But this guy didn’t have the look of a Navy guy, just something about him. He had the familiar gait of an army clone, someone used to walking around in an armor kit. Even clones probably wouldn’t have noticed it unless they’d been naval veterans from the war. It was a difference that navy guys had often discussed in their jokes and impressions. The way army guys’ movements even out of armor seemed to account for it. This guy had the armor wearingest walk Niner had ever seen.  
  
It occurred to Niner that he didn’t know this guy, he couldn’t say why a guy might have traded place with another, it had been known to happen, even in the academy. There were a million different reasons a brother might not want to be recognized. In Niner’s opinion, a brother was a brother, it didn’t matter what kind. So Niner held his peace. He wasn’t looking to get a brother beheaded and tossed to the eels just because he walked a certain way.  
  
“Where did we meet?” Niner asked.  
  
“On the Triumphant Two. I was at that piss up in the clone officers’ quarters after Lola Sayu,” Rex told him accurately. Rex was there. Nobody named Seven had been. But Niner would never remember, since he’d been blind drunk.  
  
“Could you give me some details?” Niner asked, acting official. “Just to confirm it was you.”  
  
“Oh sure,” Rex almost couldn’t stifle the laughter and it was apparent. “Commander Wolffe paid you twenty datris for every word you could come up with for your dick that he hadn’t heard.”  
  
Niner belted out laughter and slapped Rex’s hand. They were both in fits listing them.  
  
“Cranny axe!”  
  
“The Cracksman!”  
  
“Clasper the Friendly Post!”  
  
Kallus laughed a little, “Oh, THAT’S where you got those terms.”  
  
Rex facepalmed and blushed, absurdly worried that Alexsandr might be shocked by their crudeness. But then he looked over at him and remembered that this was the man Zeb had written his dirty limericks about. That made Rex blush more.  
  
“So what is the process?” Kallus asked their guest finally.  
  
“The organization is on the up and up, I can confirm,” Niner stuck with what he was allowed to reveal. “We make a good living. We have safety in numbers, a real community. Besides, I think it might be about the only place in the universe a brother can get a fair shake.”  
  
“And Lina’s really in charge?” Rex asked.  
  
“Well, yes, but there are checks and balances. Different people run different parts. They coordinate and advise her. It’s all very technical, I can’t say much more than that,” Niner was currently unsure where all the chips would fall with the Scarif problem looming. “You’ll see when you get out. Day to day, it’s just a right community. Barbecues in the park and everything. Not to mention the climate is great.”  
  
“Do you have a partner or family?” Kallus asked Niner.  
  
“A lot of brothers do. I’m afraid I got my heart set on somebody everybody wants,” Niner knew he wasn’t supposed to reveal intelligence like about who else was there, so he couldn’t reveal who she was. But he was bursting to tell somebody about his feelings without being shamed for how stupid he was for dreaming. The love he felt for Niki was real to him. No matter what he did, he couldn’t stop thinking about her.  
  
Rex smirked thinking he knew who. He let Niner go on.  
  
“But she’s still in love with a dead brother. It’s a blow to the self esteem not being able to compete with even a memory of him. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to remember that cologne he wore.”  
  
Rex chuckled to himself, imagining Lina fending off suitors, in love with his memory.  
  
“I think the actual eau de cologne was called ‘Ocean’,” Rex told the poor bastard.  
  
“Really, I thought it was called something like ‘Dark Helmet’. I’ve been looking for the stuff for months thinking that’s what it was called.”  
  
Rex nodded, “Pretty sure.”  
  
Good luck, F.L.O.B., Rex thought, confident that his memory was more meaningful than anything Niner could offer.  
  
Even Kallus had been sucked into the drama, “Let me know how it goes, you will be visiting again soon, won’t you?”  
  
–

“Why are we being sacrificed?” Laneet seemed to think that what was going to happen was still up for debate.  
  
The giant bird with the feather hat told them a story, “So the savior will come back! He will punish the wicked and reward the just. Long ago, we lived on the planet. We evolved on this planet. We built a civilization in the cliffs. Then, a cataclysm. A meteor changed the environment. The air pressure grew heavy. We couldn’t breathe. We were forced to flee the catacombs and live in the air. On the surface, the green ones came. Then the humans. Nothing new. We could not go back. But now is the worst it’s ever been. Now even the moon is changing. Our stories tell of a worldwide apocalypse. Things will grow steadily worse. Then, HE will return to bring us to the city above the clouds and kill everyone on the world who isn’t us!” Hatty told them the story.  
  
“Who is he?” Zeb asked.  
  
“The Deity!!!” Hatty shouted. Then crowed loudly what was probably the deity’s name. The birds responded, clucking in kind.  
  
“The worse things get, the closer it is to the end time. We try to hasten it where we can. That will help him come back faster,” Hatty clucked.  
  
“That’s karking insane!” Zeb shouted.  
  
One bird handed Hatty Zeb and Laneet’s weapons. Hatty hissed at them, “How do these work? I will have the power!”  
  
Zeb pointed with a toe, as his arms were tied up, “You look through this end and shoot with this switch here.  
  
The bird with the hat turned to its people and crowed. They shrieked and crowed in response. Hatty aimed the weapon as directed and its head exploded in a muffled puff of feathers. It had aimed at its own head and pulled the trigger. Just as Zeb had directed.  
  
The birds were frozen in shock at the sight of their leader’s fall.  
  
Zeb wasted no time breaking the bonds. He and Laneet grabbed their weapons and ran off towards their wrecked starship.  
  
They reached the cockpit and began to switch it on.  
  
“I thought this thing couldn’t fly,” Laneet nevertheless did not stop getting the ship ready.  
  
“Fly, no. Land, yes,” Zeb ignited it to life and drove it off the edge of the floating island, battering several structures and birds in the process.  
  
Laneet manned the gun as some birds tried to follow them down.  
  
Zeb attempted to glide the ship into at least an elegant crash. They could survive if they kept their restraints on.  
  
“Brace for impact!” Zeb shouted as the jungle trees came screaming towards them. Then, the line of trees stopped and an ocean loomed ahead.


	3. Mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things take a turn in both Wolffe and Alis' investigations

Uscru, Coruscant, Second year of the war

Niki was wearing dark goggles indoors. As long as she could sit up straight and be very still, she didn’t have to be awake and she could sleep for the whole hour. People would think she was still too traumatized to talk. They couldn’t force her to talk at these meetings, they weren’t police droids.  
  
Support circle meetings were a good opportunity to multi-task. Niki was there under court order as part of her psychiatric counseling. She’d pleaded no contest to a charge of malicious destruction of property. She didn’t want to deny it. She was not remorseful about it. She’d wanted that on her record. That incredibly wealthy john had not given her her money. So she took it out on his speeder. Niki had admitted that she struggled with mental illness, that was documented in her government paperwork.  
  
The judge could see the john was slime and so did not award damages. But she just gave Niki probation and made her attend ‘Survivors of Sexual Trauma’ meetings over her ‘unresolved anger issues’, and prove it by getting a probation chip signed by a government therapist each time. So Niki paid her debt to society by catching up on sleep. She got all ‘unresolved’ when she was over tired, so society deserved to have her well rested.  
  
Niki hoped Wolffe didn’t get into too much trouble while she was busy. She hadn’t had time to arrange someone to come and ‘visit’ him, so he’d insisted on walking her there and waiting for her outside. For HER security. She’d probably find him drinking with some weirdo again and have to prop him up for the walk home and pepper spray meth heads herself, all in very impractical shoes. She knew he meant well, but that man was heavy.  
  
Niki was nodding off as the group assembled in the little circle. But she could hear someone talking to the therapist behind her.  
  
“I’m...I’m sorry the holo-net said this one had child care. If you don’t, I can’t stay. Do you at least sign cards for trying?” a woman’s voice bargained. She was speaking in a loud whisper.  
  
“Well...” the group leader sounded reluctant.  
  
The first voice sounded harried, “Look, I had to take three different metro lines over here, I couldn’t get a sitter and my husband isn’t home at the moment. Please don’t waste my time.”  
  
Niki smirked. Who said things like that?  
  
“She could stay here...I suppose…,” the therapist unhelpfully offered.  
  
Yeah, Niki thought, that’s all a child needs, to be in a room full of people revisiting stories of sexual trauma.  
  
“I had to close up my business early. I lost income. Income I need to take care of my child, since, you know, if I don’t make enough they threatened they would put her in ‘foster care or whatever’,” the woman raised her voice to normal speaking volume. She knew other people could hear. She no longer cared.  
  
“Ma’am, calm down,” the therapist sounded condescending.  
  
Niki opened her eyes and turned to look. She loved good entertainment. Everyone else was staring too.  
  
Niki hadn’t been expecting the person she saw.  
  
A human.  
  
Niki had heard natural born humans could be poor too, but she’d never met too many. She lived in a mostly Twi’lek neighborhood because at least there, nobody called the police on her when she brought men home for money. Humans only tended to meet Niki when they had money to spend, so she assumed most were rich.  
  
This one’s clothes were cheap. From one of those stores in the immigrant neighborhoods where they had all the prices displayed with the components and the clothes were large and loose to fit a variety of species. The cloth was made from spun threads of plastic. The dress was of a longer length than was fashionable and the woman’s head was covered with a modesty scarf. Women Niki knew who dressed in the traditional clothes of their planet were usually unassimilated, but this one barely had an accent.  
  
The woman was carrying a baby wrapped in a blanket. The whole time she’d been standing there, the baby was rooting around at her top and squealing, clearly in need of a meal.  
  
The baby howled. The therapist blinked a few times like she thought this nursing mother might throw the baby at her.  
  
“Look, if you’re not gonna sign my stupid chip, just tell me now so I can go home, I’ve been working on my feet all day,” the woman continued on obviously despite herself. She had reached the point where she had just had enough. Like a heart that gives out to exertion, her body just seemed to have had all it could take and ripped open. She had lost her fight with self control.  
  
A flush appeared on the woman’s face as the muscles of her face ticked, trying to hold back the tears.  
  
She threw down the chip she had intended to get signed and yelled, “Honestly how are you helping anyone?!” She turned and made for the door, not caring about the consequences anymore.  
  
The therapist made to go after her to give her the chip back. She’d need it. There was no getting out of court orders.  
  
Niki stood and picked up the chip, then held it out to the therapist and gave her a look that said she definitely WOULD throw something.  
  
The therapist signed it, her hands trembling, “Try to get her to come back next time, okay? We’ll work something out.”  
  
Niki found the woman sitting in the hallway outside the meeting room, doing just what Niki expected her to be doing. Feeding her baby. Some things can’t wait, consequences be damned.  
  
Niki sat down next to her.  
  
The human was quietly sobbing the tears of shame.  
  
“I brought your signature,” Niki handed it to her. Then she reached in her purse and pulled out a paper handkerchief.  
  
The woman cleaned her face as best she could so as not to disturb the baby. “Thank you,” she whispered. She tried to give it back.  
  
But Niki gestured she could keep it, “What’s your name?”  
  
“Lina.”  
  
\--  
  
Lina had taken her baby home, Niki went back to the meeting. Because she still needed sleep.  
  
The next week, Lina was there alone, she said she’d brought the baby to her mother-in-law, but that worried her too. Her mother in law was drunk and crazy, apparently.  
  
Niki dozed as usual. At the break, Niki followed Lina into the refresher to find her trying to rinse the milk stains off the front of her dress.  
  
Niki pulled a stain remover fluid out of her purse and handed it to Lina.  
  
Lina began to cry again. “Damn hormones,” she muttered by way of apology.  
  
Niki had understood it otherwise. For women used to abuse, their bar for kindness was set so low that an act of generosity from a stranger could be overwhelming.  
  
Lina sprayed and blotted. Then she smiled at the absurdity of the situation. “The stupid absorbent pads slipped. Thanks. You must have everything in that bag. It’s beautiful.”  
  
Niki was suddenly conscious of how expensive her own purse was. She wasn’t sorry, she worked hard for her money, she didn’t deny herself wonderful things. But it seemed a little crass at the moment.  
  
“Your daughter is beautiful,” Niki was outwardly confident, even bubbly. Internally, she was cringing, worried she would say the wrong thing.  
  
Lina sniffed and rinsed her face, “Thank you.”  
  
She was younger than Niki had thought.  
  
“So why you have the card?” Niki asked. Then she was terrified she’d been inappropriately forward.  
  
“I was arrested for trespassing and destruction of property,” Lina answered.  
  
“Oh, me too! I destroyed my boyfriend’s dick last night,” Niki applied a coat of red lipstick. She was worried she might have gone too far with the humor.  
  
But Lina laughed, “You can be arrested for that?”  
  
“Oh no, those were separate statements. I’m also a terrible braggart,” Niki hazarded a smile. “How old is your baby?”  
  
“A month and a half. She didn’t ask for any of this,” Lina rinsed her face a few times.  
  
“Is her father the reason you’re here?” Niki asked rather too pointedly, she realized. It wasn’t really any of her business. But the fact was, most people were afraid to talk about things that were deemed too horrible. Didn’t stop them from happening, Niki knew. So she made sure to always tell the clear truth.  
  
“Not unless you think getting me pregnant when I was passed out drunk qualifies as ‘sexual trauma’,” Lina dismissed.  
  
“Don’t you?” Niki wrinkled up her nose.  
  
“My neighbors don’t. People thought he was doing me the favor by marrying me, since I’m such a tramp,” Lina explained.  
  
Niki made playful spooky fingers at Lina, “Then at least your baby wouldn’t be born without a soul!”  
  
Lina smiled, “Something like that.”  
  
“So what did you destroy maliciously?” Niki asked.  
  
“I didn’t hurt anyone. I was with a group vandalizing some government property and it got out of hand. My public defender thought that the only way I was not going to prison was to plead that I was too feeble minded to know better. So my husband testified that I was of low intelligence and didn’t know what I was doing. As an example, he brought up that my ex was a soldier and they acted like it proved my immature judgment to treat some manufactured creature like he was human. I wasn’t punished but my husband was granted power of attorney. Now I have to do these meetings,” Lina complained. Not making eye contact. It had the character of an inner monologue. But Niki listened. Women were so used to being silent or told what they were allowed to say that once you got them talking, they usually had a lot to vent.  
  
“Well, yes. It wouldn’t be a patriarchal dystopia if they didn’t find ways to rob you of your agency,” Niki said it in a clone accent. She knew how funny it sounded. She was quoting her boyfriend, Wolffe. He had always had a very interesting vocabulary.  
  
“I’ve heard so much about you...it didn’t even do you justice,” Lina admitted.  
  
Niki wasn’t surprised this woman knew who she was. Niki’s prostitute persona, C.C. was notorious with army guys. She was just surprised the woman found her impressive, rather than as competition. Since this woman’s ex had probably paid her for sex.  
  
“Who’s saying what, now? Spare no detail,” Niki smiled conspiratorially.  
  
“See if you can guess,” Lina shyly crawled out of her shell. Lina affected an impression, complete with appropriate finger pointing and eyebrow lowering.  
  
Niki smiled with obvious recognition. Captain Rex was one of the few who had never been a customer of hers, but he was a friend.  
  
Lina was apparently familiar with the affectations of a standard clone impression of Rex, “C.C. says guitars and drugs, are things women should have on their own. Too many girls hang out with too many assholes because they’ve got them. And that lady might have more experience than almost anyone I’ve ever met.”  
  
Niki felt sad for Rex. He’d never told anyone he had a girlfriend. Except maybe his friend Skywalker.  
  
–  
Coruscant- ‘Rat Bottom, after The Invasion, before The Purge

They were sitting outside Lina’s little restaurant, at a table out front on the sidewalk.  
  
“Lina, would you ever consider leaving this place?” Niki was nearly pleading with her. She didn’t think her friend would survive how things were about to get.  
  
Lina seemed defeated, “I’m not trained to live on the run. Especially not with Alis. They’ll find me,” Lina defended her inaction. “Maybe if I’m obedient, they’ll forget about me, I can just concentrate on taking care of her.”  
  
Niki knew how delusional it was to think that obedience kept you safe. Her transmission scrambler bracelet could only knock out microphones not visual data. She whispered quietly, looking down so her lips couldn’t be read on probe cameras, if there were any around, “Wolffe knew where Rex went. I don’t think anybody else does. I’m offering to tell you, then the option is there.”  
  
“No. I can’t know. I’m not trained to withstand interrogation. What if I lead them there? He’s doomed too,” Lina shook her head. Too obviously for Niki’s taste. Lina was right, they’d catch her.  
  
“The less I know the better.”  
  
Wolffe was technically MIA and Rex was officially declared dead after Mandalore. But Niki remembered a story Rex had told about a brother who was living free under the radar.  
  
Niki had no intention of going after them herself. She had plans of her own. She still dreamed of being rich and famous. And assassinating Palpatine if she ever got the chance. She knew it was a big list, but she was persistent. Life was never gonna be fair, so all Niki ever knew was keeping herself moving forward.  
  
“I just have to believe it will work out right in the end. It might not be what we want. But it’s all there is. The evil may get away with their crimes, but they’re never happy. People with good souls, they can be happy no matter what,” Lina hugged her tiny girl protectively and kissed her forehead. 

–

Coruscant, Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center- Four years later

“When’s your sentencing?” Lina asked, looking directly at her.  
  
“Friday,” Niki ripped a napkin to shreds.  
  
“Mine’s Monday,” Lina answered.  
  
They were side by side, eating in the commissary, wearing their matching orange jumpsuits.  
  
“Any idea where you’ll be sent?” They both knew Niki was going to be sent to Milagro.  
  
“Probably maintenance corps, since I’m supposed to be feeble minded. Imperial officers want their housekeepers docile,” Lina shrugged.  
  
It didn’t matter. Everywhere women were incarcerated, the treatment was probably going to be the same. People who ruled by doctrine of Unlimited Power used every bit of power they had to turn a corrupt system into a personal boon. Agents of the Emperor were stationed away from the Core, the basic assumption had been that they were entitled to comforts appropriate to their service, and entitled to exploit those in their power to whatever extent they wanted.  
  
At least on Coruscant, the guards were droids, that didn’t have the needs humans did.  
  
A guard approached them, “Grady, official correspondence.” The droid held out a holo-com, Lina took it, hand trembling. The device lit up and the hologram of an administrative droid appeared, spitting a monologue of some legal jargon. Lina tried to understand, but it was obfuscated in hopeless legalese.  
  
“What does this mean? Order of emancipation?” Lina asked the guard.  
  
“It means your pig husband divorced you and signed your little girl over to the state. Now she’s public property, just like us,” Niki knew the marketing techniques and legal euphemism. She dug feebly at her ‘food’.  
  
“But he wouldn’t do that to Alis, he’s her father,” Lina protested.  
  
The guard was unmoved.  
  
Lina covered her own mouth with her hand and whispered, which was all she dared to do, “No!”

  


–  
Mustafar- fifteen years later.  
  
Vader accessed the Imperial records and searched for the communications records for former Admiral Brom Titus. While he was Admiral in command of an Imperial Interdictor in the Del Zennis system, Titus sent a communication claiming to have captured certain high value fugitives. He never collected the Imperial rewards for their capture, however, as they all escaped his custody. The report on the incident, which had led directly to Titus’ demotion, was filed by ISB Agent Alexsandr Kallus, a man Vader knew personally before he turned.  
  
This was before Kallus had betrayed the Empire and fled. Under Imperial law, any authority could kill the man on sight. The Empire was for life, fugitives were criminals and criminals were fair game. Fugitives lived lives that were constantly under threat.  
  
Vader understood that type of law. Anakin Skywalker had grown up with a life like that back on Tatooine. He didn’t apologize for the things he did to survive it. Cunning was a gift. Killer instinct didn’t need to be ignored. Life wasn’t ever fair.  
  
In Kallus’ report, he had mentioned that one of the prisoners Titus had lost had been previously encountered on Seelos. One of Titus’ last personal communications, came from the Kwymartown police force on that planet. They were evidently responding to an offer of a reward for any information leading to the capture of the man captured on Del Zennis, whose wrist had scanned on an Imperial database as “CT-7567”.  
  
The town had all been burned in a fire and lost, including all the police records. However, Titus’ files still had the message about a detainee they had in custody. It was so routine a communication in the Imperial system, that no one had noticed it as odd.  
  
The police said the individual the detainee was claiming to be was dead according to the Imperial database, so her id was flagged and she was held. Routine procedure was to hold her until someone came and paid her bail. They directed her to contact someone who would. She had tried to contact a person identified by a certain number.  
  
Vader thought that this detainee was likely the woman he had sensed on Seelos but had not seen. The one he was connecting with through the Force. His reluctant new apprentice.  
  
He checked to see whether Titus had any copy of her identification. Since they were sure she was using a fake name, they did not consider her identity important. Therefore, no one had followed up on the listed information.  
  
Vader clicked on the button and the id came up on hologram. He knew the id was real, her real face, her real name. No one had checked because this person was supposed to be dead. Alis Grady- birthplace, Coruscant. Mother- Zerlina Tarkin Grady- birthplace, Eriadu. Vader knew because the girl’s face was just like her mother's.  
  
The girl had not cropped back up on Imperial databases since, so Vader still had no idea how to find her.  
  
But he could use what he knew of her against her.  
  
Things were going better than he imagined. Everything would be as he wanted it soon. With no more than a thought, the computer pulled up a list of her known family and contacts. 

\--  
Coruscant

Sotna stood atop the floating billboard, using her custom helmet visor to scan the passing speeders below. Her suit of white armor gleamed, picking up the colored lights.  
  
Sotna’s kit was forged of Kaminoan steel. This very unique material was metal formed under pressure, thousands of kilometers beneath the water of the planet Kamino’s panthalassa. The cloners had an exclusive contract from the Republic to manufacture armor from the substance as a part of their defense contract for the production of the Fett clone army. Only a finite and well documented amount of clone armor was ever made, all of it accounted for in official Republic channels. Each component had an embedded number identifying which brother the pieces had belonged to and therefore each piece could be matched to a specific clone’s history.  
  
The attachment between Kaminoan steel and the Fett people was therefore extremely emotional. For them, the substance symbolized a tangible testament to the existence of one of them. Armor stood in place of a person with an almost religious reverence.  
  
Sotna’s mother Niki, the clone colony’s prime ministra, had passed legislation making the retrieval of Kaminoan steel an official policy of the clone homeland movement that branded itself a government. The law said that the DQA considered all Kaminoan steel their property. They funded missions for the recovery of, or at least the knowledge about the circumstances of the destruction of, every bit of the substance they could. Now that there was a second generation to their family, the clones could begin to think about such things as cultural property and ancestry and inheritance.  
  
Ultimately, they wanted all existent steel to be given to their children. The material was not merely valuable, although it was, but it was also a sacred trust. Symbolic of this, Cody gifted the first new suits to be forged to the community’s first adopted children, Sotna and her three fellow intelligence agents Sh’ehn, Goran and Stabbi.  
  
Even Niki, who mostly did not get involved in military ceremony, felt it was important that her daughter be recognized. As Sotna was the only non-human one of the four, Cody had designed Sotna’s special helmet for her, part protection for her head and lekku, part mask of a doashim, Ryloth’s most fearsome species. It made her extremely memorable, but extremely difficult to recognize by surveillance cameras and probe droids. She had been sighted around Coruscant, but no description could even agree of what species she was.  
  
Sotna knelt down on the billboard and drew out her dart gun. A product of the colony’s weapons lab. It shot cartridges that injected a nearly poisonous concentration of alcohol when they came in contact with skin. The vials were made of a glassy wax, made to melt when subjected to heat, meaning they disappeared in a fire.  
  
Sotna’s scope identified her target.  
  
An ISB agent that Cody had identified for her had just come from a dinner at the Asogian Embassy. He blackmailed the ambassador over some amateur porn his daughter did. He had been using his position in intelligence as a personal blackmailing side hustle for years.  
  
Sotna cranked at the rifle sight and lined up the shot and proceeded to hit the agent’s pilot in the neck. The speeder careened into the path of other passing vehicles and impacted a landing platform. The vehicle then dropped down towards the surface in a flaming ball and fell to earth. Sotna calmly folded her dart gun back to portability.  
  
She had time. Below, all attention was on the ‘accident’. Sotna ignited her jetpack and dove down towards the surface level. She made her way, weaving between buildings and in and out of traffic.  
  
Sotna dodged and wove, through an area that had hanging lights, she arrived at the window of her dorm and doused the pack.  
  
Not everyone in her colony had a jet pack. As expensive pieces of equipment, jet packs had not been part of standard clone issue. Specialized missions only. Although, most clones had been trained to operate one. Even if they’d ever had them, most of the clones on Rishi had been prisoners or rescues, with no possessions.  
  
Sotna’s pack had been left at the end of the war in her mother Niki’s apartment. It was an old one, as its owner had been issued an upgrade before Cato Neimoidia, thence he disappeared forever. The pack was decorated with a design of black stripes meant to approximate shaggy hair along a spine. Niki had sold it to an artifact collector on Smuggler’s Moon to pay some legal fees. After she’d gotten out of prison, Niki had told Cody the story and he had tracked down the relic at great effort.  
  
It had belonged to Niki’s boyfriend, or ‘This one time, Wolffe...’ as all the clone storytellers on Rishi referred to him, right before they told some outrageous, funny tale about something he got up to. He was legendary. Sotna’s mother had told the best ones.  
  
Sotna had never come to look upon him as any kind of father, she had Cody, who had raised her since she was a small girl. But the chain of inheritance had decided that ‘This one time Wolffe’s legacy was hers to curate.  
  
Sotna pressed the retract switch on her helmet and its panels folded, letting down her lekku. She stashed her kit behind a hidden panel she’d installed in her closet. She changed out of her flight suit. She switched on the holo-net viewer to see if there was news of the accident. Sotna had seen an occasional report about herself on the news. She was rumored to be a vehicle, a flying Jedi, and an escaped dragon from the zoo. She was enjoying all the trouble she was creating.  
  
No report yet.  
  
She showered and dressed for her date.  
  
She was seeing Captain Kilian, but Captain Kicky would be there too, both of them drinking. She could ignore them both and focus on the target, Kilian’s father the admiral.  
  
Her dress was red and on one shoulder, the same one she’d seen an anchor wear on the propaganda news on her holo-net viewer.  
  
There was a knock at the door panel. She opened it and a child stood on the other side. To see her dressed up as if she had a life of her own, the kid was looking at her as incredulously as if she was carrying a candy wand.  
  
“Miz Stuff, the toilet’s clogged again!” the entitled little brat whined.  
  
“Fine, I’ll fix it,” she hissed at him. She was working undercover as a dormitory RA for the Legislative Youth. She was astonished how easily these elitist little people assumed she was their maid or servant just because she was a Twi’lek. It was very important that she not arouse suspicion, therefore she just had to act servile. Anything else would offend them and it could get her fired before her mission was over.  
  
She stormed into the communal refresher and grabbed the plunger, swearing. Then, on the inside wall of the stall, she saw some graffiti that read, ‘Tail headed whore!’ and there was a crude drawing of her sucking a penis.  
  
Another boy saw her there looking at the graffiti, “Could you empty the trash while you’re here?” he laughed and ran away.  
  
Sotna didn’t lose her cool. She carefully put on a pair of long protective gloves. Then she gathered the clogging shit in a bag. She checked the dorm sign in sheet to see who the handwriting on the graffiti belonged to. It was the same kid who’d ordered her to fix the toilet.  
  
She waited until he and his roommate went out. Then dumped the shit under the topsheet at the foot of his bed and cranked the heat.  
  
It would be found a day later when his roommate smelled something and the source of the stench was located. Sotna then wrote him up for shitting the bed and charged his parents a cleaning fee, as was within her meager bureaucratic power.  
  
“Any trouble, my dear?” Captain Kilian asked when he picked her up.  
  
She had him help her with her religious medallion to hang it on her neck, “None whatsoever.”  
  
\--

For clone soldiers, armor, uniforms, their very faces were all self identifying. To go off base on Coruscant was to shine a spotlight on yourself. If anyone wanted to target Clone Wars’ soldiers with exclusion or violence, they were easy to recognize. And bashing them had been generally accepted. What did anybody care whether clones felt welcome? It wasn’t like anybody thought they were real humans back then. The society had made them to be used.  
  
Wolffe was used to attracting negative attention as people seemed to loom or threaten, or embolden themselves to sling their hate. It had always confused him that natural born people found the time to hate a race of people that they had made themselves. And what had they done? Clones had only existed for ten years. He felt he hadn’t even been given a chance.  
  
Therefore, it was weird for him to wear armor that seemed to have the opposite effect. His borrowed Stormtrooper armor seemed to carry a stink that made people turn away and scatter before him. No one wanted any trouble.  
  
He was sure he could have just walked into a bureaucratic office and met little resistance, armed as he was with an E-11. But Stormtroopers would look out of place reading or asking for information.  
  
He had to come up with a thuggish thing to do.  
  
First, he took the metro from the Coruscant Green Park stop to UOC stop.  
  
He emerged on to the campus of the University of Coruscant.  
  
Students were veering out of his path. Wolffe wondered why he had been so against wearing Stormtrooper armor for so long. This was downright fun, like wearing a monster costume.  
  
He stormed into the Art Department, right up to the admin’s desk.  
  
“Ma’am, where is Jek Lawquane. We have reports he has been engaging in seditious acts. Creating degenerate art and so forth,” Wolffe intimidated in a Corellian accent.  
  
The Dressellian at the desk answered, “I hate this place. I can’t wait to get out of here. First of the year, that’s when I’m retiring. I’ve decided.”  
  
“Ma’am, I just need to know if he’s here,” Wolffe held his blaster so she could see it.  
  
“He’s on Alderaan, some big gallery show,” she rolled her eyes as if to say, ‘fool thinks he’s so big’. She leaned in, “But between you and me, you should look at the wife too. Twi’lek hoochie. They’re all freaks you ask me.”  
  
She gave Wolffe the com signature where Jek could be reached on Alderaan. So in his armor, Wolffe went to a kiosk that sold burner comlinks and punched in the number as he was on the metro from the University District back to the Armory stop.  
  
A familiar voice answered on the audio comlink. His tone was different. Lower, tougher, “Who this?”  
  
“Well, that’s no way to greet a person. Hello there,” Wolffe began.  
  
“Daddy?! Is everyone alright?” Jek Lawquane sounded shocked. Suddenly the voice was back to his childhood intonation. He knew his father abhorred using com equipment. He got a bad feeling about this.  
  
Wolffe decided this necessitated some jagging, “Jek, I’ve left your mother. She just doesn’t understand me. Just because I went skinny dipping with some of the neighbors and she said it might make her die of shame! I’ve come to live with you!”  
  
“What!?” Jek freaked. “Where are you right now?”  
  
“I’m on Coruscant,” Wolffe barked.  
  
“I’ll send Koyi over to get you,” Jek decided.  
  
“Yeah, nah, I met some people at the park. We’re going to go jump a fence and skinny dip in a pool. Tell her to meet me tomorrow at the Museum...” Wolffe paused. He was playing Cut, a guy who had been to about three places in the big wide galaxy, certainly never anywhere as noisy and busy as the capital. “Bring me clothes! Jawas took mine! I got nothing to wear!”  
  
Wolffe got off the metro in The Works. He stormed on into the place where Alis’ grandmother said her son worked and demanded to know where this ‘Grady’ was. His boss didn’t want any trouble. He said the man in question was out on a job.  
  
And of course, not having a vehicle at his disposal, Wolffe had to get over there by Metro. He cursed and grumbled at all the public transportation he was having to take. At least he didn’t have to pay for a pass, being a tool of state government with a loaded E-11 and all.  
  
Wolffe was tempted to fire it a few times, he’d heard tell that this gun had a longer range than the old DC-15A’s and he felt like seeing if it was true. But he didn’t really want to bullsye some scurriers just to satisfy his curiosity. No one would have stopped him, though. He had promised himself to be less impulsive to be a good example for the kids.  
  
Finally, he arrived at the Palace. The banners were not hung, therefore Himself wasn’t currently in residence. Who knew what he was doing? Off attending a boat parade in his honor or abusing corpses or whatever.  
  
Wolffe noticed that his mood was always better when Lord Hideous was busy wrecking someone else’s brain chemistry with his foul proximity. Wolffe’s suffering was probably no more nourishing to the agents of the Dark Side than a grain of bird seed, which was why he hadn’t had any relapses of Force torture. He wanted to keep it that way.  
  
He marched on in to the Ziggurat, for the first time in twenty years. The shadows of late afternoon were long and raked across his path ominously.  
  
Wolffe headed over to the kitchen delivery area around the back. He knew the building pretty well, not much had been changed about the basic layout. Like every major monument, the Palace, formerly the Jedi Temple, was much more than an empty shell of a building. Any big facility required regular maintenance, vehicle parking, food preparation and administration. These things tended to be retained intact in a functional change, thus the lot of those who worked there didn’t change much. The upper levels were probably of a completely different character, if Wolffe were to assume, but projections of power were extremely cosmetic in nature compared to day to day stuff.  
  
He walked into the basement kitchen and scanned the punch cards. As he was masquerading as an oppressive tool of the state in a government building, carrying an E-11, nobody dared question his presence there.  
  
Seeing a familiar name, he scanned the counters where the staff were chopping and prepping. His visor set on a young woman butchering a cut of meat with a vibro blade.  
  
Wolffe the Stormtrooper walked over to her, but she refused to look up from her task.  
  
“Ma’am, a word please? I need to ask you a few questions,” Wolffe didn’t try to disguise the dialect.  
  
“Well, I’ll have to ask my supervisor, I might have to punch out,” she stalled. She was visibly trying to keep calm, but her knees trembled.  
  
The kitchen supervisor came over to see what the trouble was.  
  
Wolffe put up one of his palms, “Rivoche here isn’t in any trouble, but she might have been a witness to some anti-Imperialist action. Is there somewhere secure I can speak with her?”  
  
The boss looked relieved, “You can use the walk in refrigerator. No one can hear over the fans.”  
  
Rivoche accompanied Wolffe to the room full of thawing meat. Wolffe looked around, “This Empire is gonna collapse because of gout. Yeesh.”  
  
Rivoche did not answer.  
  
Wolffe removed his helmet.  
  
She finally looked surprised, “Uncle Wolffe!” The prosthetic eye was so distinctive to him as to make him as individual as a clone could possibly be. “I didn’t recognize you. Most clones became Stormtroopers after the war, I just figured you were one of them.”  
  
It was weird for Wolffe to be grouped separately from his family, “Listen, Rivoche, I wasn’t there at the end, I heard about it after, but...is it true how Gree went out?”  
  
Rivoche’s mother had been Commander Gree’s girlfriend back in the day. They acted like a real family, even going to the zoo and stuff. If anyone cared what happened to him, Rivoche would.  
  
Rivoche looked sad, “He was on Kashyyk. The holo-net news said he and Thire were beheaded unprovoked by Master Yoda. It’s true what they say. The Jedi had gone crazy. They were trying to bring down the Republic. They massacred hundreds of clones here.” She pointed downwards to indicate the building in which she was standing. “I heard the Jedi knew they would be rounded up and arrested, so rather than let themselves be taken, they slaughtered their own younglings and padawans. My mother worked here then, she saw. I know those kids weren’t killed with blasters, but lightsabers. After the massacre, a few dozen more clones were working to keep the building secure for investigators. The security camera footage showed it was Yoda and Kenobi killing them one after the other. Wolffe, it was horrible! I’m so glad you survived...” she pointed at his armor, “And that you’re still loyal.”  
  
Wolffe got a sinking feeling. He trusted Rivoche not to lie, he’d known her since she was a kid, but this was a version the story Wolffe had never heard before. Since he already had plans to go back up to the University District, he made a mental note to add a library trip to his errands. He wasn’t ‘loyal’ to what she thought he was, but he figured he was living a few lies at this point, one more wouldn’t get him into trouble. Or any MORE trouble, he guessed. “O...kay, anyway, Rivoche, I need you to do me a favor, you’re from ‘Rat Bottom, yeah?”  
  
“Yes,” Rivoche nodded, wanting to help her uncle, the oppressive tool of state with the E-11.  
  
“Do you remember someone named Grady, he’s in vent maintenance?” Wolffe asked.  
  
“Oh yeah, he still works here. He’s out by the service entrance playing chance cubes,” Rivoche put her hands on her hips and looked scoldingly. Apparently that guy was not thought well of.  
  
Wolffe asked Rivoche for a com signature as protocol for the interview. For paperwork he would never file because it was not really his job. The real owner of the armor would be the one who would get in trouble if he was asked to call to account for time on the clock that he wasted interviewing a dead end about some possible ‘anti-Imperial’ activities. Wolffe didn’t think anybody would probe it in depth, but Den could write it off as he wanted to try to hook up with the kitchen help and punishment would be minimal. Unlike Den, Wolffe had, of course, read the military regulations manuals before donning the armor, so he could advise on what crimes to cop to versus others. He couldn’t believe the amount of typos and spelling mistakes in the documents.  
  
Before he left, Wolffe went into the walk in freezer and stole some frozen cookie dough in Gregor’s honor.  
  
Wolffe marched his E-11 out to the service entrance to the loading docks and ‘requisitioned’ a load lifter. His damned feet were tired and he didn’t feel like running all over the docks looking for this fool. He drove slowly across the landing platforms, searching for his quarry. He spotted the group of men squatting on the ground in a circle, with their backs out.  
  
“Grady?” Wolffe got out and menaced with the weapon.  
  
The vent contractors all stood abruptly and turned.  
  
Wolffe’s quarry responded, “Yes?”  
  
Wolffe was surprised that this idiot was actually known to him. “Ezan Grady?”  
  
“What’s this about,” Wolffe’s old frienemy looked like he had just eaten some bad seafood. No color in the face and a cold sweat on his forehead. He was probably up to about forty things that could get his security clearance rescinded.  
  
“We uh, we have a problem with your mother,” Wolffe smiled under the helmet.  
  
Ezan looked relieved. “Well she has a restraining order out on me,” Ezan explained, plausibly, as if his mother was the unreasonable one.  
  
However, Wolffe knew the guy and he was a lying sack of crap, so he knew he couldn’t believe Ezan hadn’t at least earned her desire to have him at least 500 meters away at all times. Wolffe knew the guy from another context.  
  
Ezan had a regular hookup from around the way in the Armory District when Wolffe lived there. So they regularly ended up at the same places around the way. From what Wolffe had seen, Ezan chased tail constantly when he was out alone. And drank heavily. And did drugs. Wolffe couldn’t really claim the moral high ground, since he was living his life in all kinds of reprehensible fashions. However, Wolffe had seen firsthand how the guy talked and acted and it was not in any way respectful. Wolffe had heard the way Ezan talked about women when he thought only like-minded men were around.  
  
Wolffe nodded, seemingly in agreement, “Sir, your mother is out of control, sir.”  
  
“What...is this a joke?” Ezan’s face looked afraid.  
  
“She has been identified as a venereal disease vector. The entire neighborhood has gone into lockdown. Are you aware that she was kidnapping men off the street for sex?”  
  
“Is this a joke? Guys, which one of you did this? Is this one of those prank programs?” Ezan looked around. His co-workers were clearly struggling not to laugh.  
  
“I went around to investigate yesterday and...” Wolffe prattled on, “Well, I’ll send you a copy of my detailed statement in the report of the incident. Sir, do you understand what constitutes lawful consent?”  
  
“Of course. You’re kidding...” Ezan looked like he was restraining joy. “Will she have to be taken into custody?”  
  
“At this point, we think state care is for the best. Is that still your address?” Wolffe now needed to see her alone. However dangerous that would be. But not unpleasant. 

\--

Alis turned right down the pedestrian platform street. As she approached the proper place, she had a feeling like the row of structures were taking equidistant steps towards her. This was a neighborhood that the Republic was content to ignore. Therefore, it had been a place people could find a little bit of freedom. Outsiders only visited there to get things they should not have wanted.  
  
It had been twenty years since Wolffe had last turned his back on the place and had made sure that he’d never looked behind him. Wanting to let the past die. But unable to kill it. The place just buzzed with his descriptions. The bodega was closed and boarded up. Most of the buildings looked abandoned. No one to talk to, just garbage and stray animals.  
  
Alis checked the address and touched the railing from the stoop of the correct one. It was a thing she was sure the person she was looking for had been in the presence of. The woman had touched it or walked by it every day. It stood there, a silent witness.  
  
Alis had committed her heart to this quest, based merely on her friend’s descriptions of this person. As far as Alis knew, this ‘C.C.’ was not someone who had ever affected her. Yet somehow, she seemed to just know this quest was right for her to do. Some people might call it destiny. Alis thought it might just have been her own desire to see good things happen and she thought this was good. Wolffe had been more family to her than most people she had ever known, and he loved this person. That was enough for Alis’ eager heart.  
  
The entrance to the old building was locked. So Alis was fixing to hotwire it. Then she decided to try Wolffe’s old door code. To her utter amazement, the number was still valid. The portal eased open. No one had probably occupied the apartment since Wolffe’s love had lived there, so no need to bother to erase it.  
  
Alis mounted the stairs, trying to affect a spring in her step, imagining Wolffe happily coming home.  
  
No noise came from the other apartments. His code worked for the flat’s door.  
  
Inside there was just the outer room and the kitchen. On the wall, a cavity where a safe had been. The door portals to refresher and bedroom. The whole place looked of dingy abandonment.  
  
As directed, Alis went over and checked in the refresher where the tub was mounted. One of the floor tiles had a hollow underneath. Wolffe had built it for himself, as security systems went, it was pretty effective, since nobody was looking for it.  
  
Inside, there were no credits of course. No drugs. Nothing but a holostill viewer that was extremely out-dated tech.  
  
Alis looked at the holo-viewer. Just the presence of the object in her hand overcame her with emotion. Wolffe had told her not to open it without him, but she didn’t think it would do any harm. She hit the switch. The first image was a penis, so Alis switched it off immediately, “Karking Wolffe.”  
  
Alis was about to put the thing in her pocket when she felt someone or something moving behind her.  
  
Wolffe had described threats out there, like that woman with the red blade who had attacked her on Seelos. People that up until then, Alis thought were the stuff of fairy tales.  
  
That woman had nearly killed her by choking her without even needing to make physical contact. Alis was just picked up against her will and her mind was bombarded with visions that turned her inside out and laid bare all her fears and emotions. Then her neck was constricted until her vision went red. Wolffe had saved her life from this person who had rendered her completely helpless under her power as easily as look at her.  
  
He wasn’t there now…. 

\--

Sotna headed out on a simple errand. She landed in the Armory district and doused the jetpack, landing on the roof. The street was empty and dark, which was better. Her armor kit was made to scare away curiosity.  
  
The site buzzed with familiarity, as Sotna thought of all her mother’s stories. She trotted down the stairs, imitating the familiar gait of her clone uncles.  
  
Sotna reached the door and shot the door panel. The door opened. To her surprise, something was alive in there. A humanoid stood there in the dark, in a poncho with the hood raised.  
  
“Who are you?” Sotna interrogated through the monstrous mask of the helmet.  
  
All Alis saw was a silhouette in the gloom, but the shape was inhuman and threatening, like a monster out of a nightmare.  
  
Alis ran straight at her, trying to check the thing out of the way.  
  
Sotna turned and grabbed her ankle and tackled her, “What do you have there. Give me that!”  
  
Alis wrestled away, but Sotna kept getting ahold of her, like she knew the counters to every move.  
  
“Get away!” Alis screamed. Her hood fell.  
  
Sotna was so surprised by how familiar the face was that she didn’t register it as odd at first. Then it dawned on her, “PRINCESS?”  
  
In Sotna’s distraction, Alis got a chance to kick her in the midriff.  
  
Alis ran for the door and made her way up to the roof.  
  
It was a good kick. Sotna needed a second to get herself back up. Sotna ran to the hallway and out to the building stair well. She looked down to see how far ahead and whether she could jump it. Then she heard the door above slide open. Sotna jetted up the stairs. By the time she got there, the roof was empty.  
  
“Osik,” Sotna swore using her uncles’ favorite Mando’a curse.  
  
In the dark, she hadn’t noticed the grappling hook, anchoring on the balustrade. Alis hid against the wall of the building by the wire, struggling to keep quiet and hold on.  
  
Alis heard the creature walk to the far side of the roof. Alis pulled herself up and looked over roof’s edge, just long in time to see a distinctively painted jetpack ignite and the figure fly into the dark.


End file.
